| A vegan guide to japan |
| Being vegan in Japan is certainly not easy and I initially had a lot of trouble during my stay there teaching English in 2002 and 2003. I decided to make this website because it was something that I would have liked to have had access to while I was there. The main difficulties I experienced were conveying to people what vegan meant, finding decent food when eating out, and coercing restaurant staff to make something vegan (avoiding soup stock is a very good idea), finding vegan necessities and organic foods in local shops (mail-order was a savior...), and buying and eating things that would have been vegan back home but were not in Japan. I made lots of mistakes and ate finely chopped meat twice, as well as animal fats in bread, cow milk derivitives in soy milk, and fish in miso paste. I even went to a restaurant near Osaka aquarium that advertised itself as vegetarian but used beef stock in their soup. They chose not to acknowledge the contradiction when I pointed it out and didn't seem to care that I was a vegan who had just had their 'vegetarian' soup. Hmmm... Eating animals again was definitely not an option so I persevered and eventually found some good vegan-friendly places to eat and shop and learned how to read ingredient labels on products. Being able to speak and read some Japanese was useful when I needed to bombard staff with questions. If there's anything that you think should be here that isn't or if you have any other ideas or comments please email Toby at toby_lea@hotmail.com I'd also like to extend big thanks to Adrian Pellas-Rice for keeping me informed about the changing details of existing restaurants as well as new ones that have opened and for providing some excellent English maps. As I'm no longer living in Japan it has been a big help. Good luck.... Last updated: april 2006 |
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