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The fact that Julia and Isa’s food blog is about vegan comfort food doesn’t come to mind when you hear the name “Zucker&Jagdwurst”. Even if you flip through her recipes, you won’t notice it until eggs aren’t on the ingredient list for the egg salad.

But that’s exactly the goal of the two: vegan cooking – so good and so unobtrusive without animal ingredients that everyone likes it.

In an interview they tell Watson how to make the leap to a vegan diet and why you shouldn’t judge yourself so harshly.

Julia, as a child you wanted to become a sausage seller – instead you now run the vegan food blog “Zucker&Jagdwurst” with Isa. Whence the change of heart?
julia: It wasn’t a career dream of mine for years, but I certainly grew up on sausage and meat and liked the taste. As a child I always thought it was impressive when they could weigh sausages down to the gram or when you got something for free – that’s how this career ambition grew in me as a small child.

What has changed?
julia: When I was twelve years old, I first became aware of what the Wiener Wurst, which I like to eat, actually consists of. That was the point where I decided I didn’t want to eat meat anymore.

Is this story also the reason for your rather unusual blog name?
julia: Funnily enough, many love this story. The name just hits our humor. But yes, we both liked the taste of meat – so we didn’t go vegan for taste reasons.

A lot has changed for the better since you went vegan in 2010 and 2013. What were your biggest struggles back then?
julia: Before I became a vegan, I had been vegetarian for a long time – from the age of 12. When I left home, I started to question myself more and more when shopping and gave up all animal products overnight. For me, the biggest struggle at the time was money as a student.

Is that easier these days?
julia: Yes. Of course there are still expensive replacement products today, but then there was hardly anything and certainly no cheap own brands. The questions I asked myself then were: What am I going to eat now? And why is the vegan yogurt so expensive? It only takes a moment before you realize that pasta with tomato sauce is already vegan and not expensive at all.

Is a: I was actually a bit lucky. I’ve never liked cheese or steak. I was the typical girl who liked to eat chicken. And I always bake a lot, so eggs were the bigger issue for me. Becoming a vegan when I left home meant learning everything all over again. And then suddenly you had to cook something and then try, try, try until it tasted better at some point. Happy!

julia: It’s so relaxed these days – if you like chicken, you can find vegan products that taste 1:1 like chicken.

Which insanely simplifies the whole thing.
julia: Especially for parents and grandparents who suddenly have to cook differently for their vegan children, it is of course wonderful if they can throw a schnitzel in the pan as usual, only vegan. If you like the company, you might even buy the vegan meats. I see that with my parents now too – they buy the vegan sausage because they have already understood that it’s cool if you don’t eat so much meat. You don’t have to go completely vegan right away, that’s fine.

How did your families react when you decided to become vegan?
Is a: About my background: I come from a family with Swabian roots. That means I grew up on dumplings, spaetzle, roasted onions, and meatloaf. My mom was very annoyed because somehow I always needed an extra treat, which I can understand. I certainly had a lot to discuss. It took a really long time, especially with my grandmother, who always says, “Meat is a piece of life force.” Today she still asks me at Christmas if I don’t want to eat at least a piece of meat.

And you Julia?
julia: Well, because I was twelve when I became a vegetarian, my parents didn’t really take it seriously at first, but they accepted it. It gradually became obvious that I don’t eat meat. And when I went vegan, they said it was much more relaxed when I was just a vegetarian. Other than that it wasn’t really a discussion for me.

Many – often older people – become defensive as soon as they hear that something is vegan. Do you have any tips for convincing them to go vegan?
julia: I think the current Fridays For Future generation is an incredible amount of explaining to the older generation anyway. It’s probably not stressful for them to explain why they’ve reduced their meat consumption or switched completely to vegan.

Let’s say you convinced someone to go vegan. Do you have any tips on how best to start the vegan diet?
Is a: The first tip is to relax first. Most people put way too much pressure on themselves and try to do everything perfectly. But that’s nonsense: the more you think about it, the faster you get overwhelmed and then maybe let it go. You can start slowly and look for a good milk alternative first, then switch to yogurt. Some also do it so that they first switch breakfast to vegan, then lunch and then dinner. Or you can start with one vegan meal a week – take it easy and don’t put too much pressure on it.

And what about recipes?
Is a: We always say that it makes sense to make the recipes you already cook vegan and start with the simplest: pasta with tomato sauce, peppers stuffed with rice, tomato soup. And with a soup you just use oat cream instead of regular cream, that’s it. You don’t have to overexert yourself and think that you have to perform well now.

That is also the goal of your food blog: to convince people of vegan food, which they associate with sacrifice, a lot of effort and tasteless vegetables.
julia: At least we succeeded! We’ve put cake on the table without people realizing it’s vegan and saying something like, “Because the cake is vegan, it tastes good.”

Is a: Or people have asked which of our blog recipes are vegan. Because we cook a lot of classic recipes, people often don’t realize they are vegan until the second step. They don’t look like that in the pictures. It is of course also great if you manage to cut vegan roulades and at first glance do not see that it is not meat, but a slice of eggplant.