My path to Blattgold – A beginner’s guide

It is perfectly normal for the transition from a “normal” diet towards Blattgold dishes to take some time.
An ideal occasion to highlight a change is a gut renovation or fasting. But even without this break a successful transition is manageable. Give yourselves (and your children) time to adjust. Depending on how long you have been eating sugar, white flour or convenience food, it is perfectly normal for your body to need a little getting used to the “new” taste. Be brave, all will be good! Do not get discouraged. For example, you could begin by replacing one of your daily meals with a healthy, vegan choice. And then slowly build on that…

Things certainly didn’t happen overnight for me, either. My journey began more than 20 years ago: I became a vegetarian when I was 11 years old. Not until 15 years later, shortly before the birth of my first daughter, I began to follow up intensively on my food intake. I switched to organic choices, stopped consuming dairy and reduced my white sugar intake. It took us another 3 years before we took the step to a plant based diet. And we’re not there yet. I do not pretend to think that our diet is perfect. But I do my best according to what I know today. Frequently, when I come across new findings, they will be integrated into our diet. It’s a never closed box, you will continue to learn and develop every day. And that’s what makes it so exciting!

Especially in relation to sugar weaning it might prove helpful in the beginning to make everything just a little sweeter than described in my recipes. Add one more date or an additional spoon of coconut blossom sugar. The goal here is to bring the sweetness to a level that is completely satisfactory for you. Over time, you will be happy with less and less sweetening. It really is like withdrawal from an addiction and we are now at the point that our family despises conventionally sweetened things. They actually taste way too sweet for us!

If you still store convenience products, don’t throw them out. Just try to not add any new ones to your pantry. That way, with every shopping trip your cabinets will fill up with more unprocessed foods step by step. Not only will you eat way cheaper, menu planning will also get much more flexible. Soon you will have a wonderful pantry from which you can conjure up the most varied delicacies.

When we switched to “vegan” I could not imagine a life without cheese. Back then, we had switched almost exclusively to goat and we loved it! Again, think of it as a withdrawal, it will take about 2-4 weeks to “get clean”. This is due to intestinal bacteria needed for the digestion of cheese. Their mere presence in your body creates new desire for cheese. What a dirty trick! But stop feeding them for a while and they will disappear. And with them your desire for cheese! Today, the sight of a triple-cheese pizza is no longer appealing to me. And if old cravings and memories make your mouth water, you wouldn’t believe how well a serving of oven-baked cashew cheese will satisfy them!

When it comes to milk, today there are countless alternatives available virtually everywhere. Our favorites are oat and almond milk. We have tried and tested the lot of them. The best-tasting plant based milk is oat milk by Oatly: the one with added calcium, coming in a dark blue tetra pack.

Today we make our own plant-based milk on a regular basis. For your transition phase I recommend you keep it as simple and convenient as possible for yourself. Consumed in moderation, selected organic convenience products are a great help. Aspire a step by step journey. When you feel safe and comfortable with a certain level of your new dietary decisions, that’s the right moment to continue along your path. If you plan an entire changeover from one day to the next (which is doable, of course), you run a high risk of frustration. Also the time needed to create meals and basics yourself should not be underestimated. With a gradual shift, your outside life will have an easier time adjusting to your extended kitchen sessions.

If you do manage to create (almost) everything from scratch, nutrition will take on a whole other role in your life. It will turn into something of value instead of only a means to an end. In our living room we have an old chest, which – at the best of times – is packed shock-full with nuts, dates, amaranth, grains, seeds and cereals, cocoa, beans, coconut oil… We call it our treasure chest. And in fact we do feel quite rich and healthy when it is filled! Nowadays, food has become the most important commodity in our lives. And also in the lives of our children. It makes us happy to see how they accept our values. For their birthdays, they can scarcely imagine a more beautiful gift than an abundance of goji berries or dried apricots!