10 Reasons Why Eating Vegan in China is NOT Easy

Posted by Jason Sharp on Mar 28, 2009 in China | View Comments

I wrote about “The China Study” in a previous post and how that and my experience in China pushed me to make the decision to go Vegan.  This does not mean that eating vegan in China is easier.  Chinese people DO eat LESS meat, but I would argue that there are fewer choices of NO meat than in the USA.  Coming to China CAN result in healthier eating, but eating at the healthiest level is not as easy as in other places in the world.

Many people out there think that living in China makes going vegan super easy and almost “natural.”  Here are some things that people should know about China:

1. Meat is considered a blessing.  Fish is considered lucky.

2. All holiday meals include almost exclusively meat: I barely ate at my company’s New Year’s dinner because they only ordered one plate with vegetables and 15 plates of meat.

3. Nearly every dish contains meat in some form, whether it is ground, sliced, or simply used as a base.  There are very few fully vegetarian dishes.

4. Eating vegetarian is known only as a moral thing of monks and for women on a diet.  It is considered as not necessary for health, and not eating meat means that you are purposefully not satisfying your body’s needs.

5. Do to #4, there is heavy social pressure against being vegetarian.  Once mentioned, there will be many questions and suspicions.  Read more about this in my article about majority thinking.

6. I have only met 1 Chinese vegetarian before, and she was highly influenced by her Tai Chi master (moral + diet).

7. There are very few vegetarian / vegan restaurants, and they are not conveniently located.

8. Eating out is so cheap that the only benefit to cooking is to control what goes in your food.  Those who eat meat are at an advantage.

9. Eating in China is communal (everyone eats from the same dishes rather than individual plates) and a single dish will not have a variety of tastes.  The vegetarian will have fewer choices of dishes to eat from and thus not have the same variety in his meals – unless all parties are vegetarian (not likely, see #6).   Consider:  a meat eater and a vegetarian go to a restaurant.  They order one dish of pork and one dish of broccoli.  Who wins?

10. There is no vegetarian / vegan section at the supermarket.  You can’t find the big cartons of yummy chocolate/vanilla soy milk.  There is no vegan cheese or vegetarian burger.  You can’t buy vegetarian meat.

Related posts:

  1. The China Study and Eating Vegan
  2. Chinese Hot Pot
  3. Restroom Observations in China
  4. When in Rome… do’s and don’ts.
  • http://vibrantsignificance.wordpress.com/2010/06/12/cooking-wonderment/ Cooking Wonderment | Vibrant Significance

    [...] research seems to point to China being not-so-vegan friendly. Blogs like this one and this one as well as sites like this one and this one make me nervous. But anybody who knows me probably [...]

  • Joanna

    1. Meat and fish were rare and precious back to 1980s or earlier. Chinese ate very little dairy at the time, too. Meat and fish were the sole source for most Chinese to absorb protein. Eggs at the time were supposed to be superior food too.
    2. For the same reason.
    3. As I explained, meat and fish were supposed to be precious, so the flavor of meat or fish is pleasant to taste in vegan dishes.
    4. It is easier to explain in this way: would an American consider a guy who refrains from turning up when surrounded by ten bond girls?
    5. I agree.
    6. Date back to 20 years ago, you would find that millions of Chinese HAD TO BE vegetarians. Meat and fish were limited, and only could be obtained through individual quota authorized by government. Be minded at the time China was much more communism. Any market was forbidden and supposed to threaten communism foundation.
    7. Cause they are not popular among people.
    8. I think it is dear to eat good food in a good restaurant in Beijing. There are always cheap ones, but the sanitation and taste are completely not guaranteed. Most Chinese people still prefer to cook meals at home.
    9. Who wins?
    10. I think there are plenty of soy milk, vegetarian meat (if you mean the meat made by soy beans, we call it “fuzhu”) out of there in the supermarkets, especially in large ones. I don’t know what is vegan cheese. I thought all kinds of cheese are vegan because they are made from milk.

  • Joanna

    1. Meat and fish were rare and precious back to 1980s or earlier. Chinese ate very little dairy at the time, too. Meat and fish were the sole source for most Chinese to absorb protein. Eggs at the time were supposed to be superior food too.
    2. For the same reason.
    3. As I explained, meat and fish were supposed to be precious, so the flavor of meat or fish is pleasant to taste in vegan dishes.
    4. It is easier to explain in this way: would an American consider a guy who refrains from turning up when surrounded by ten bond girls?
    5. I agree.
    6. Date back to 20 years ago, you would find that millions of Chinese HAD TO BE vegetarians. Meat and fish were limited, and only could be obtained through individual quota authorized by government. Be minded at the time China was much more communism. Any market was forbidden and supposed to threaten communism foundation.
    7. Cause they are not popular among people.
    8. I think it is dear to eat good food in a good restaurant in Beijing. There are always cheap ones, but the sanitation and taste are completely not guaranteed. Most Chinese people still prefer to cook meals at home.
    9. Who wins?
    10. I think there are plenty of soy milk, vegetarian meat (if you mean the meat made by soy beans, we call it “fuzhu”) out of there in the supermarkets, especially in large ones. I don’t know what is vegan cheese. I thought all kinds of cheese are vegan because they are made from milk.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_QEM3CFXCYFT7Y6CXUSOBC6W5SA Kids Behealthy

    The post is very informative. I also thought that Chinese people has been almost all vegan eaters. It doesn’t occur to me that it is hard to practice vegan diets in their country. I never realize that there are fewer of them who has a heart for eating raw food recipe.

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