Comedienne Maria Clara Groppler: Which clichés about vegans are true

Her “Let’s Dance” adventure ended in the spring after the first episode, but Mara Clara Groppler (25) doesn’t let that get her down. The Comedienne can look back on a successful year. She is currently touring Germany with her second live program “Mehrjungfrau”, and her song “Vegan” has been played over 1.7 million times on Spotify. As a convinced vegan, she also supports the Veganuary organization together with the vegan butter alternative Eleplant. In an interview on the sidelines of the shoot for her self-designed Veganuary T-shirt, the Groppler reveals which prejudices about vegans are true – and who she wouldn’t joke about in her program.

Maria Clara Groppler: Yes, I do a lot and it’s difficult to combine it all. I always have phases like this: In one phase I do a lot of stand-up. In other phases I work on songs or social media. Of course, with “Let’s Dance” I couldn’t do much else on the side, but I wasn’t there that long either.

Groppler: Well, I would say I can learn quite well. But I think if it suited me really well, I probably wouldn’t have been kicked out in the first show. (laughs)

Groppler: There are now actually a few vegan shops in every city. For example, we often order bowls before shows. But I also love checking out the cities’ vegan restaurants. Then I google it and go out to eat before my shows.

Groppler: “How do you recognize a vegan? He will tell you.” This cliché is already true in my case, so I tell people relatively early on that I eat vegan. But it often just comes up organically. For example, if you want to eat something that you have to eat three times a day, then you have to say: “I’m vegan.” Is there anything vegan there or can we go there and order something? Hey, are these cookies vegan? That’s why you come to the topic relatively quickly and talk about it. You could perhaps say it’s a bit militant, but people are interested, they asked me about it.

Groppler: There are topics that you just don’t have to joke about, for example marginalized groups. I prefer to joke about myself and see what’s funny in my life. What really moves me is what interests me, what I have strong feelings and emotions about. Because that’s often where the most comedy lies.

Groppler: What I think is just cool about Veganuary is that everyone has the opportunity to get to grips with vegan nutrition for free. You can get recipes or simple help on how to make the change easier. In fact, people need around 21 days to establish a new habit – and Veganuary is the whole of January. If you go through with this, then you may have managed to introduce a new habit and, in the best case scenario, you will remain vegan forever because you will have realized: It’s not that difficult!

Groppler: For me it was actually a big expansion of my menu. You wouldn’t think so, but before that I had a very unbalanced diet. I actually only ever ate pizza and spaghetti Bolognese and was a bit picky and didn’t try out a lot of different things. Because of the vegan diet you have to deal with the topic of nutrition. I then started trying Indian or Asian cuisine and my diet just became fuller.

Groppler: There really is a vegan alternative for almost every animal product. If you look around the supermarket, you can find a vegan alternative for every ingredient in a recipe. My easy recipe number one is pasta with pesto. There is a lot of pesto that is also vegan. I sometimes make my own pesto from cashews or with soy cream. You can also make Bolognese with vegan mince. I love Chili Sin Carne. Every recipe can also be made vegan.

Groppler: I think cheese can still be improved. We now have a lot of vegan meat alternatives. But I think a few more companies could put a little more focus on vegan cheese.