An interview from a passionate vegan soul!

• Tell us a bit about yourself.                                                                          My name is Fleur, I am 22 years old and currently living in The Netherlands. I study environmental sciences and political science in Amsterdam and I will be graduating this year. I am excited to start a Master in sustainable business and innovation next semester. In 2013, I made the decision to start eating vegan and I have never felt any better. 

• How did this passion of your started? Was there a moment that sparked some ideas to start this passion of yours?
  I began Nourishingfoods about seven years ago when I was slowly transitioning into veganism. Even just seven years ago, veganism was not even half as big as it is now. On Instagram I found inspiration for my vegan meals and I also started sharing my meals and recipes. I unexpectedly gained quite a following and it became a fun passion of mine to create healthy plant based meals.

• We can see that on your posts you blend the colors beautifully all the time, do you plan ahead? How do you get inspiration and decide the outcome??
  How my feed looks is important to me. Therefore, I do plan ahead sometimes but I am not very strict about it. I usually just go with the flow. After making the recipes, I look at which one looks the best and post it. I love to add a lot of colours to my meal as well. Not only is it healthy to eat a variety of colours, it also looks very beautiful.

• How do you create? For instance how do you combine, colors and flavors for a dish?
  I love to create healthy versions of typical "unhealthy’’ foods that I used to love before going vegan. For example, I used to love Snickers but I do not eat them anymore so I made ones with dates, peanuts and dark chocolate. Going to restaurants and trying different cuisines also gives me a lot of inspiration. I spend a lot of my time in Berlin where my boyfriend lives and there you can find a wide variety of cuisines. The vegan scene is also bursting! That also excites me to try and recreate the food I had.
  
  

• Why do you think your numbers are growing? How do you differentiate yourself from others pages that are similar?                                             There are a lot of factors in play that determine the growth of your page. I believe the most important factors are consistent posting and creating good content that speaks to your audience. At one point I made the commitment to post something everyday and since then, I have been rapidly growing. How I differentiate myself? I think what people appreciate about my recipes is that they are simple to follow, delicious and are always made up out of accessible ingredients.

• What are your future plans regarding your passion or your page?                  I recently launched my website www.nourishingfoods.me  where I post most of my recipes and also sell eco friendly products such as bamboo travel cutlery, metal straws and cotton bags.  I am passionate about the environment (hence I study environmental sciences  ;) ) and I truly believe that making small changes to our day to day lives can all add up to something much greater. One of the biggest problems is the use of single use items like bags, cutlery and straws made out of plastics. By replacing these items with eco friendly reusable items made out of bamboo and stainless steel you can easily reduce your ecological footprint.

• If you had to decide a dish for iamvibes, what would it be?                 Fueling yourself with nutritious food is a form of empowerment to me. Therefore, I would make a Buddha bowl for iamvibes. A buddha bowl is a vegan one-bowl meal filled with grains, legumes, vegetables, nuts or seeds and topped off with dressing. It is an easy and delicious way to get high vibrance food into your body. I would fill it with marinated tempeh, rice noodles, edamame, sprouts, carrot, cucumber, cilantro, sesame seeds and a peanut satay dressing.

Thank you <3