This journey is about so much more than just cooking. It’s about tackling climate change, food insecurity, and malnutrition through a practical, holistic approach.

In the last year, my role has shifted from a solo entrepreneur to leading a local team that shares the BODY&SOIL vision. Walking the grounds, greeting staff, and seeing our new headquarters take shape fills me with pride. What was just a year ago a dream is now becoming tangible.

“I have a grandfather who still walks straight—that’s because of indigenous foods," a man said to me as he walked past my booth at the 5th German-African Business Summit (GABS) in Kenya this week, while grabbing a handful of my postcards showcasing indigenous foods.

What will people want to eat? How do we bring nutritious, delicious, and indigenous foods to market in an exciting way? If it were easy, we’d already see these options on supermarket shelves and local markets.

"This is what our elders used to eat, and they stayed healthy, living up to 120 years," I discovered this group of farmers through the Slow Food website. What excited me was their initiative to create an organic market called the "Mangulwa Earth Market" to promote all these indigenous foods, with a specific focus on the Kitarasa banana.

Discovering what people want to grow and eat, and what solutions will truly take root, will definitely be an organic process that requires time and patience.

I’ve realized that I don’t need to know it all; I just need to be the bridge that connects people, experts, ideas, and different worlds. I don’t need to reinvent the wheel but to be the person who builds a vehicle that moves forward. To find those parts and pieces of the puzzle, I needed to move. I need to create a strategy.

I'm passionate about finding alternative foods that don't necessarily change cultural eating habits but instead improve nutrient outcomes for both the body and the soil. During my recent research beginning of April in Kenya, I found one possible solution: Banana flour! 🥳

I've been in hiding for a bit;)So let me reintroduce myself : I'm Maria—an american-German photographer, author of “Eating with AFrica”, and a nutritionist. With a newfound purpose to transform lives in Africa through education on how to heal both the body and the soil.