Petrus Faller, Booja-Booja Ice Cream Magician and Fashion Designer

48 year old Peter Faller from Freiburg, Germany has been managing director of Booja-Booja since 2004. Booja-Booja is a British gourmet company whose vegan and mostly raw ice cream desserts and wonderful organic vegan chocolate truffles (of which two varieties are raw vegan!) have received 45 awards in the past 11 years.

Natural products and simple, natural ways of living have always been part of the skilled tailor’s and costume designer’s life. He used natural fibers and vegetable dyes for his fashion, and mixed body oils and natural cosmetics in the 80s, when “organic certification” had not even been invented a term.
In 2012, his old passion for design resurfaced, with the newly founded label “The Green Gorilla Surfs In Peace”. On the menu: clothes, bags, caps – and perfume! And all of it as natural as possible.
Today he is our guest at Rohtopia – welcome!

• Hello, nice to have you here today and thank you for letting me ask you all my question 🙂 If you would please introduce yourself, and add anything I did not mention in my introduction:

• When did you first become aware of the raw food diet and how did you start?

i became vegetarian in 1980, when i was 16, due to illness, and because i was always nauseous in butcher shops even as a child, and I refused to enter them, then it was side dished only and the prophecy that i would die soon …In 1984, i learned about yoga and have been practising since; it is the best pharmacy in the world! In 1988, i started working in an organic store and tried out many different ways of nutrition with our customers, it was very very funny.. pioneering times in which much was possible.

it was the “muesli movement”, without it the organic market today would not exist. back then, bananas cost 7-8 mark (around 4 euro / 6 dollars), a kilo of carrots 4-5 mark (2-3 Euro / 4-5 dollars) ….

We were all “cereal men”! “frischkornbrei” (kind of soaked raw cereals) every morning following dr. bruker’s theories, with a large share of raw food on the day … as much as possible … and of course all vegan 🙂 … there were so many vegetarian jokes …. yeah we copped a lot (laughs). so the raw food movement has not only been around for a few years. it has many mothers and fathers, they simply had no names … ther was not even “organic” as a name or brand or label …. the sun food diet and instincto for example were really inspiring and fun too.. i really tried a lot.

and since i was also addicted to bulimia for several years … in the mid eighties … i know many sides of this topic, and also, what man/woman can make out of it.
so just take the whole thing with serenity and humor, and grow into it slowly, it is only one part – albeit an important one – of life and health.

• What’s always in your pantry or fridge? – “raw food staples”

green stuff, olives, carrots, … in the refrigerator. that’s all in the fridge. i only buy stuff for a day or two, the rest grows around the house – i live in freiburg / kappel by the edge of the forest where deer come to the house at dusk …. or i go to the market in freiburg minster, that’s 3 minutes from my office, or “victory sun” also just around the corner, the best organic store ever with a huge raw food selection, with everything you need, such a great address, and very nice people too.

in the cabinet: coconut butter coconut oil, algae, our cocoa beans, lots, green tea – white monkey :), dates, figs, flaxseed, hemp seeds, unfortunately no chocolate, (here in the office and warehouse i’m surrounded by tons of it) olive oil , vinegar, oats, millet, rice, quinoa nutritional yeast, – yeap that’s it- well and tons of apples, lemons, pears and kiwis and a few bananas on the cabinet, sometimes mangos. we live in freiburg in paradise, everything is available fresh.

• In the (early?) 80s you went across India and came back as a Western Saddhu, barefoot and wrapped in cloths. Have you tried some Indian Fasting rituals or anything similar or do you do that here sometimes and / or do you have an opinion about fasting?

i fast since i was twenty, at least once a year (in spring) for at least 7-10 days or longer. sometimes a day per week; that has nothing to do with india 🙂 it’s simply good to sometimes not eat anything  and devote your attention to other things, or i fast when i’m stuck in a “crisis”, physically or in any other way (laughs), that is the best “medicine” … to start with.

• Do you take any supplements or so-called superfoods?

nope, and i never did, except when friends give me something, spirulina or so. i have been dealing with nutrition for a long time, i know what i need and what i need to eat to not get any deficiencies. i get it checked every couple of years … everything is perfect except for vitamin b12, which sometimes differs very little by 10-20% from the so-called “standard” – … according to the conventional view, on the sense of diet and nutrition I should have been gone long ago .. starved (laughs)
if man/woman wants to eat raw/vegan over decades, man / woman needs to be very familiar with food and be sensitive to their body, or it may fail the best intention or be detrimental, thus purely grow into it with patience.

• What do you think of the effects of raw cocoa? Can you “overdose”?

Of course one can overdose, 5-6 beans a day are enough, and then have a break sometimes. nutrition has a lot to do with voluntary discipline, so too much is never good, no matter what.

• If you ever were or are 100% raw, what is your experience 100%  vs. not 100% raw?

100% raw is the best of all and absolutely right for me. i have a very heavy workload, a long day and a lot around the ears and the eyes … so without this kind of nutrition, all this would not be possible. cooked is unnecessary for me and after long phases of 100% raw I have also become ill just by the smell of cooked food, especially vegetables … that was really weird … i avoid cooked vegetables if possible completely.

but i’m not dogmatic. i also go out for an “indian” dinner  with friends on special occasions (afterwards one just pays the “price” of the flabby feeling, etc. but anyway, that’s okay …)
or if i feel that i need something, so if there is anything missing from the diet, and i notice it physically (usually I’ll then get all “wiggly”) then i sometimes cook wholegrain rice, millet or quinoa, or might eat one or two cooked potatoes or even a whole wheat bun … The art is just to do that consciously, and then re-establish discipline for what really is good for you. that is an art that one needs to learn  and that trains the tolerance to one self and others as well as real self-discipline which is not based on blind mortification or rules …

“the indians” always laughed about us – back then at the mediation center in india, and they noticed that “germans” are TOO SERIOUS… i think they got a point there …. because i know myself quite well (laughs loudly) so i do not see a nutritional direction as something “special”. man and woman should simply be aware that everything in life is interconnected, has an effect and its “price” that will have to be paid at some point, by us or by others for us, especially in nutrition.

nutrition is a very dynamic process in life. a corset does not help, it is important to know what is good and what one needs. i know this and try to act accordingly.

• Who or what else influences you most?

• Tell us a detail about you that most people do not know.

• In which direction is the raw food movement / sustainability going in your opinion?

• Is there anything else you would like to add?