On which fuel do you run on? - written by Mateja (Slovenia) April 2020

I had been a vegetarian for a long time and always I was told, that it is easy for me. They said: '' You are a girl, you don’t work hard, you live in a city, you don’t know what hard work is, you don’t work physical... ''. And I never argued, because I don't like the ''religious'' vegetarians, who are fighting online and in the streets for a greener diet. But I tried to be calm and explained them the fact, that in the past the workers and farmers didn’t always had meat on the table. They eat it one or max two times per week, or more or less when they had it. But even that didn’t work, it was the same arguments about my easy lifestyle and being a girl.

Then last month I moved to Jarenina, to work as European Solidarity Corps volunteer in an NGO, EKO POT. As many of you know, this is an organization that provides knowledge about organic/biodynamic farming, sustainable lifestyle and self-sufficiency. 

The farming part in the NGO came with a lot of physical work, even though I m a girl, as many said to me before, I need to work the same hours and do the same jobs as men do. And the most interesting part for me is, that the our diet is more or less vegetarian. So, we have 4 meals per day. We start with breakfast (bread, butter, marmalades, vegetarian spreads, cereals), then there is a cold lunch break (salad, cheese, bread, vegetarian spreads), warm lunch (rice, pasta, potatoes, vegetables, soup) and dinner (each takes what they like, but a lot of times we eat leftovers from lunch). Meat is almost never on the table during the weeks, more or less it comes with weekends. When there is more time to prepare a more complicated dish.

And we are all still alive. The work is never easy. In our community we have three strong kids, that have a healthy body and run like crazy when they are outside.

So next time when somebody will said to me: '' You are a girl, you don’t work hard, you live in a city, you don’t know what hard work is, you don’t work physical... '', I think I will start smiling and tell them the story of my ESC volunteer experience.

For the end I want to say, that this short ''diary report '' is not a paper about being a vegetarian is the only and the best option. But I think that a diet with meat 7 times per week on your plate is a delusion and not a healthy way to live.
I support eating meat one or two per week, if you know from where the meat comes. So, eat smart and try to buy local.

I hope you are not panicking too much because of the situation on our planet right now.

Written by an organic warrior from Slovenia, Mateja Marovt