Karen Duve

Karen Duve spent a year trying to eat in an ethically correct way, gradually tightening her belt and becoming stricter, eating different diets for two months each, first organic, then vegetarian, then vegan and finally fruitarian. Fruitarians are people who only eat things that fall from trees and bushes. Carrots and potatoes are prohibited, as eating them would kill the plant, whereas apples, nuts and tomatoes are allowed, as the plant survives. (…) How does a vegan cope with a craving for whole-milk chocolate? And are there not conflicts in the summer when she only eats berries and suchlike to avoid killing any more plants (…). Of course there are conflicts! But it is these very conflicts that turn what starts off as a dreadful non-fiction subject into an entertaining coming-of-age novel in which a mute wooden supermarket Pinocchio turns into a responsible consumer. The fact that she gets on the nerves of the people around her when she spoils the fun of a barbeque is something she seems to relish.

Alex Rühle: „Vom Fleisch gefallen“
© Süddeutsche Zeitung, 15 March 2011