I’m a vegan/vegetarian (i dont eat fish/eggs as well), and this is one of the scariest things about me wanting to go to Japan. I always knew it would be hard, and this article just kind of reinforces this. Even if you can do it, it’s going to be a huge pain in the ass for you, and for the people around you. And that just doesn’t seem nice.

well is not just a strict problem for some of vegetarian, many people out there inspite of vegan have a special dietary restriction for some particular food. for example the moslem people, they have a strict rule to avoid any foods that contain pig meat, yes that mean bacon too. The worse thing was that lot of Japanese cuisine always contain any part of pig on it. ramen, udon, miso soup, etc.
http://okonomikatsu.blogspot.com/

Also, there’s a vegan Meetup group in Tokyo that should be encouraging for someone moving or visiting Japan. Check it out here: http://www.meetup.com/vegan-389/

I just dont eat Cheese, dairy milk and red meat. I love tofu, miso, any soya stuff, and every fish except swordfish and trout. I wonder if they make coffee with soya milk in Japan? I know the soya milk option is popular in the west in may coffee shops, like Starbucks.

I’ve been to Japan twice, the most recent being a couple weeks ago. I’m a vegetarian, not vegan, so while I am OK with dairy and eggs, I haven’t had meat of any kind (seafood included) in over six years, so it’s important I know what I’m getting myself into. I always do my research before going, and luckily for me I have a friend from Japan that wrote out my restrictions on a card in case I needed it.

This article is correct in that if you simply tell someone you’re a veg, you will most likely be brought some fish or shellfish (you’ll need to specify against both, and also inquire about any broths as stated). It’s really helpful to make a Google Map of vegetarian friendly restaurants before you get there that you can reference when you’re out and about so that you’re not always popping into somewhere random and seeing if they can accommodate you, because some places simply won’t (and I personally hate being a bother anyway).

Cafe Matsuontoko in Kyoto is AMAZING, and Kyoto is actually a little more veg friendly than Tokyo overall. Seriously, it was the best veggie burger I’ve had in my entire life. I dream about that thing. Bon in Tokyo is great if you’d like to try a shojin ryori restaurant as mentioned in the article. Be aware it’s pricey and takes awhile to eat there, but you’ll never forget it. On that note, anyone in NYC who is curious about temple food before going can check out Kajitsu.

It’s not impossible to eat vegetarian while there but it definitely takes some work.

The fact that vegetables are hard to come by (in restaurants) was the same complaint Eat Your Kimchi had about eating out in Japan. There are hardly any vegetables served typically in Japanese restaurants. Or at least compared to Korea, where banchan is served with every meal, which consists of mostly if not all vegetables.

I have no allergies, food sensitivities (well I can’t handle anything spicy hahaha #whiteperson), and I’m mostly vegetarian save for fish and dairy, which worked perfectly for being in Japan (Kobe, Osaka, Nara, Kyoto areas). Yes, there were times when I had to ask the server or chef to omit meat and make sure it wasn’t spicy, or I had to skip out on certain outings because everyone wanted meaty or spicy goodness and that was all the restaurant had. And yes, my Japanese friends there also helped me out when there was confusion, but overall I was safe because I ate fish and dairy. :x However, my American friend is vegetarian, and she had a super hard time and went hungry pretty fast, because even when it’s an all-veggie curry or kitsune udon deal, there could be that one overlooked ingredient like dashi, and she didn’t know how to ask about that/didn’t want to seem picky and rude. And I can’t even imagine being vegan over there hahahaha But…I’m sure it’s super-manageable when you have your own place and can maintain in-meals with your own stuff, but we were merely students with no space to save or make food. It is nice to know that even though Japan is less veg*n-friendly than America, they are super nice and willing to accommodate (isn’t Japan always?)

I’m a vegan of 3 years and I actually find it super super easy to be a vegan in Japan! It probably helps that I’ve been studying Japanese for longer than that, but still. Every Japanese person I’ve talked to about being a vegan / vegetarian has been sincerely interested and understanding. And when I stayed with a host family my wonderful host mom (she’s the best!) got really excited to experiment with vegan recipes and my whole host family enjoyed trying out vegan meals. So I think it depends on your situation, but you can definitely be a vegan / vegetarian in Japan. :)

When I was in Japan a few years ago I had been a vegetarian (in my home country) — meaning no fish or meat. However, it was nearly impossible to eat non-seafood products. I became a pescetarian while there and didn’t have a problem. They like eggs in a lot of things too. I eat them, but I’m not a fan of them personally.

So would you eat human meat if you were going to a place where canibals lived? Or eat dog or cat?
Being veg has not a lot to do with missing out. Especially in asia you find a ton of traditional food that’s 100% veg, due to religion. In other parts of the world many traditional food is meat free because back in the days people couldn’t afford it. And even if you totally nedd to have a dish, that may contain some animal stuff: Just leaving out the egg in your ramen or subsituting fishy dashi with konbu dashi won’t make too much of a big difference.
I actually find, that veggie people, especially vegans are even more likely to step out of their comfort zone. Or well, maybe the comfort zone is just a whole lot bigger. That’s because it’s easier to try things from other cultures which are naturally animal-free, than to recreate everything you know and expect it being the same. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. But I know so many “normal” people, who wouldn’t willingly try tofu, because it’s just something they don’t know.
Leaving out animal products seems like a big deal to many people, because it’s become such a big part on most people’s plates, but actually it’s just a few handful of products. If I said, that I don’t like and won’t eat pumpkin, no matter how cultural it is, simply because I don’t like it, you probably wouldn’t accuse me of being ignorant, wasteful, stupid and missing out of being alive. As I said, there’s so much veg stuff to eat, that if you were to try it all, your time probably would be too short. So no need to eat meat just for the sake of experience.
Oh, and if you really want, come to Germany and I’ll stuff you with some faux-meat products which even my grandmother can’t tell apart from “real” meat. Vegetarian cuisine actually is a part of culture itself, it also evolved and carries history, identity and personality of the culture and people who created it. As you can learn for example from this very blog, culture doens’t neccesarily need to be thousands of years old, to be considered traditional.
However, I agree with you, that people should get in touch with different cultures and also try things taht might seem a bit unconventional to them in the first place. But you don’t need to do every single tiny thing.

Hope you understand what I mean. It’s kinda hard to explain to an non-veg person, that most vegs are not missing anything and we eat pretty much the same as “normal” people too.

I lived in Japan for two years as a vegan. It’s not super-difficult if you could speak Japanese well enough to restaurant staff or read ingredients, but that requires a lot of language learning commitment, and I didn’t really get to that point until after I was there for about a year. It usually only became a problem when I was invited to some non-veg-friendly restaurant by friends or co-workers, where I’d be stuck with rice, salad or bread.

If you live in Tokyo, Osaka, or Kyoto, you will have absolutely no problem finding lots of great vegan food. There were actually a number of veggie-friendly and even a couple specifically vegan (but not shojin ryori) restaurants in the medium-sized city where I lived in western Japan, but I probably never would’ve figured out where they were had I not had some foundation in the language. There are also nice random veggie restaurants in smaller places like Takayama, Gifu or Ishigaki Island in Okinawa, but it certainly gets a lot sparser out in the countryside.

Japan is not quite the veggie mecca of Asia (that would probably be Taiwan, or maybe Singapore), but my experience taught me that there’s a lot more going on there than meets the eye.

Agreed! I canNOT have pork in any way, shape or form…. and this has been a challenge as it is often “hidden” in foods which I had assumed were beef. I learned, the hard way, and now stick to fish when in Japan (^.^).

Not sure if someone already mentioned this in the comments, but what I learned long ago in Nihongo class is that while meat was banned in Japan for a period in Japanese history, there were a lot of exceptions – most notably all seafood, poultry, and rabbits (birds and rabbits are both counted as -wa, and apparently this special clarification got them out of the -to/-piki classified usual four leggers off Japanese menus.

So the problem for vegetarians is – if you are vegan or strict vegetarian, while Japan has amazing and vegetable rich food, it has no history of veganism. And in fact, it learned a lot about getting its flavors for umami, not just from veges, but be leveraging the flavors that go into dashi (ie, lots of fish and seafood) and chicken.

So if you are one of those trendy “no red meat or pork” vegetarians that still east fish and chicken, Japan was almost MADE for you. I have vegetarian friends that ate fish, but gave up in the end on avoiding chicken and included that too, simply because it is too much trouble in day to day life to avoid poultry here in the end.

Not a personal experience, but I have had Jewish friends visit, and learned (a) kosher is a pain in the neck, and is almost completely incompatible with Japanese diet, especially on the seafood side, and (b) most restaurant staff have no idea of the details of the ingredients in dishes they serve, and have no comprehension of ethical or religious dietary requirements.

I personally have a soba allergy. Japanese know what that means, and tend not to like patrons dying in their restaurants and so sometimes, even in an udon restaurant which uses soba flour about the kitchen, the manager will come out, and warn me either off certain items even without soba and/or prepare something special. They are great when it comes to known allergies and health issues, but almost unable to comprehend other situations.

I like the diet card – suggest you should probably consider getting some religious ones there, and ones to capture some more of the subtle permutations of vegetarianism, since lately many people seem to be shades of difference short of total veganism.

Nice piece!

I Agreed about the “Hidden” part XD it’s really hard to avoid that one.

You are not completely correct. Though I mentioned several times, there are 4 main stuffs of Dash. They are bonito and sardine as you said and seaweed kelp and shiitake mushroom. So if you are a vegetarian, you only have to request the latter 2 although it may be a little expensive. Japan is a paradise for vegetarians because there is wide variety of cuisine with meat imitating food such as tofu hamburg, etc.
Btw, if you are a vegan, you must require not to use even honey.

Nowadays there are quite a few “vegan/vegetarian” dedicated restaurants in large to mid-range cities. As the article pointed out, though, the extent to which these restaurants adhere to a western definition of vegan/vegetarianism differs from place to place. I know that trendier, more modern establishments will serve you meals that have never been in sight of an animal, but less concerned places could care less that, say, a broth is fish-based.. Overall I would say that vegetarians fare a bit better than vegans in terms of eating out choices, but proper language ability can always make anything possible.

In any case, those planning to live in Japan need not fret about their diets because any concern can be ameliorated by preparing home dishes. Japanese supermarkets are always stocked with fresh produce and the range of vegetarian-friendly items (tofu, natto, etc) abound. I myself am not vegetarian but for a good month during my study abroad I lived off rice, natto, and enoki. This trinity saved me a bunch of money and was pretty healthy (lol).

Freshness Burgers tofu and beans burgers ^^ mmmmm… I crave them now that I’m home.

I believe I can speak for most, if not all, vegans when I say: your pity is quite misplaced. Nor are we ‘missing out’ on some of the best parts of being alive; rather, we’re ‘opting out’ from one of the worst and most deeply entrenched dogmas of human history – the notion that we’re morally permitted to subjugate, enslave, torture, kill, eat, wear, experiment on, etc. animals. Animals are not things; they’re selves, they’re beings with a subjective experience of the world, a capacity to feel pain and joy. We have no right to treat them as resources. Moreover, by opting out of this dogma, vegans opt for compassion. I know you think that veganism is fundamentally misguided, but your conception of what it’s like to actually be vegan…as though our day-to-day experience is one of self-deprivation and struggle…is just plain wrong. Being vegan feels good; it feels right. Refusing to partake of the full menu of different cultural culinary traditions when traveling… or, closer to home, the decision to avoid cheese, honey, Confectioner’s glaze, wool, silk, leather, etc. isn’t experienced by vegans as some sort of great sacrifice or hardship on our part. Rather, it’s experienced as simply acting in accordance with what one knows, morally, to be right. The knowledge that each day, with each consumptive decision we make, we’re taking a principled stand of conscientious objection against cruelty is, after all, why we’re vegans in the first place. I’d no more lament not being able to partake of the inherent cruelty of non-vegan cuisine than I would not being able to simply steal something I can’t afford to pay for. So again, we don’t need your pity. In fact, since it seems you have pity to spare, perhaps you might redirect some of it to the animals whose suffering and death you’re so blithely complicit in.

Thanks! Is it only available in Starbucks? Like other coffee shops and restaurants dont do it?