Japan slow to cater for vegetarians despite growing demand

Not cannot eat them but don't want to eat them...

No change please.

I have seen quite a few dishes for vegetarian in many restaurants.

If everyone starts asking for customized food...

The article seems to be making the case that somehow it's "dashi" that is the issue, which of course can't be helped because it is "traditional". But it's not even that dashi is the only or even the biggest problem, almost everything has some kind of meat extract in it, even food you would not imagine, or gelatin. If you cannot read the labels, which I suspect is the case with many visitors, you would never know or suspect this pointless contamination in so much food. Restaurants are an even more hopeless case altogether. Most of the staff have no idea what is in the food.

"There is a Taiwanese restaurant offering vegan tempura soba near the university. It tastes like Chinese food, but I have no choice but to go eat there," she added.

.

Tempura soba with vegetables is all over Japan.

But there’ll be fish in the broth unless they use some vegetable extract instead.

I have seen quite a few dishes for vegetarian in many restaurants.

You realize that meat eaters can also eat vegetarian dishes, right?

To meat eaters, it's just food.

Eat salad and tofu.

It's not difficult to have a vegan option in any eatery, as long as you have decent staff to deal with it. If your staff are lazy or don't care, it will go wrong. Vegan food is really simple to prepare, suitable for vegetarians, and the ingredients cost is usually lower than for a meat-based meal (so, more profit). Just make it simple and don't smother it with tonnes of garlic or peppers. Vegans typically have more sensitive taste buds as they eat less processed food. You can add strong flavours as condiment options on request or at the table, but you can't take them away.

Amazon has a virtual shelf of Vegan Japanese recipe books, should you need one. Personally, as a vegan of more than 30 years, I just cook whatever veggies I have with potatoes, pasta, rice or legumes. Vegetable soup is easy with any veggies and legumes you have handy. Vegan cakes are easy, and high quality vegan chocolate is readily obtainable. It's not rocket science and it tastes nice.

In the UK, high street snack store Greggs (in)famously launched a vegan sausage roll. Greggs are as mainstream as McDonalds and often the butt of snobbish/hipster comedy. It was an unexpected product but it proved to be really popular. They got an astonishing amount of free publicity out of it and sell absolutely loads of them. As a business decision it was a work of genius.

If there is demand, someone should make a vegan form of concentrated men-tsuyu, basically the base for udon soup. It can used as a short cut in many Japanese foods. Its not the proper way to make them, but the initial problem is increasing the range of options vegetarians have. We can work on quality later.

If you want to be vegetarian in Japan, yes, you have to read labels. Meat extracts are everywhere. If anyone knows those round wholewheat crackers sold in the green box, they have pork extract in them. What pork extract is doing in crackers I can't tell you.

I live in Japan and have a vegan friend. She took me to a vegan restaurant in Osaka where I ate a pizza that was 100% soy-based. It was one of the most disgusting things I ever ate. Even the cheese was soy.

Then a year or two later we went to a vegan place in Shibuya (this was to cater to her because my friend is vegan). I had vegan karaage with tartar sauce. The "chicken" was just massive balls of soy and the tartar sauce was yellow for some reason. Had to force every morsel down my throat it was so gross.

Cater to vegetarians, go ahead. Cater to vegans, at least try and make the food palatable.

If there was genuinely that much of a demand, the market would accomodate it. In reality, a 'body that promotes vegetarianism' has spoken out and published some nice quotes that overstate the need for everybody to change. There are plenty of vegetarian options if you go to the correct places.

Some people might not know, but there are no vegetarian options even in school meals, or even alternatives for people with allergies. You have one option, and if you don't eat it, you bring your own food instead. That is how this country is. If Japanese restaurants in tourist areas don't cater for your dietry requirements, then YOU should be the one that must be flexible.

If Japanese restaurants in tourist areas don't cater for your dietry requirements, then YOU should be the one that must be flexible.

So… same as everywhere.

Kind of strange to demand an entire country change their food culture to suit the tastes of a very niche group of people with self-imposed dietary restrictions.

Since I am big into the gym, I guess it would make sense to demand every restaurant carry protein bars for my post-workout snack???

Pander and cater are synonymous.

Enjoy your salad. I like vegetables, too. But vegans can be utterly annoying with their entitlement attitude.

Kind of strange to demand an entire country change their food culture to suit the tastes of a very niche group of people with self-imposed dietary restrictions.

Since I am big into the gym, I guess it would make sense to demand every restaurant carry protein bars for my post-workout snack???

Enjoy your salad. I like vegetables, too. But vegans can be utterly annoying with their entitlement attitude.

Well said. May I also add Halel food as well.

Well said. May I also add Halel food as well.

Are you one of these people that are angry because businesses have decided they want to make more money by expanding their customer base?

Very weird that attitude.

Kind of strange to demand an entire country change their food culture to suit the tastes of a very niche group of people with self-imposed dietary restrictions.

Exactly!

If you do not want to make the effort to adapt, why would the local do that for you? It is no-sense.

Kind of strange to demand an entire country change their food culture to suit the tastes of a very niche group of people with self-imposed dietary restrictions.

Nobody is demanding anything. The “demand” in the title refers to a desire to buy something. (It’s an Econ 101 term.)

If there is growth in that sector of the market, restaurants and food producers will cater to it purely for financial benefit.

Japan made Halal foods available for Muslims. It's more complicated than vegetarian/vegan dishes.

A restaurant will provide if there is enough demand.

Eating vegetarian food in Japan

"Shojin ryori. Shojin ryori is traditional Japanese Buddhist cuisine that's strictly vegetarian, and a must for plant-based travelers. Often found in temple restaurants, it features a series of beautifully presented dishes highlighting local vegetables and tofu."

Wallace

Have you turned vegetarian now?

I dine the old veggie lark when younger for about a year when I was very idealistic about things. Don’t think I’d ever go back but could handle if I had to, not vegan though, no way Pedro!

falseflagsteve

Have you turned vegetarian now?

No not personally but I do have family members who have been vegetarians or vegans for 50 years. When they visit I make the food they want. I am very good at making vegetarian and vegan dishes. I like apple pie with cashew cream. Have you ever tried it?

I dine the old veggie lark when younger for about a year when I was very idealistic about things. Don’t think I’d ever go back but could handle if I had to, not vegan though, no way Pedro!

It's not a lark. It's a personal choice and freedom. You are not required to follow.

ffs

have you never tried "Shojin Ryori?"

So many buddhist restaurants aroung the city 'suburbs'? around Kansai. I am a pesci, my son buddhist, his mother pepares a vegan fish for me, obviously we have done it many times before. If you desire it and it is not on the menu, get responsible and learn how to do it at home. is cooking good for the mental health??

Too much fried chicken and ‘hamba-gu’.

As a vegetarian myself I can’t understand this guy whining about a vegan tempura soba. If you want it that badly stop searching for a venue that’ll serve it and make it yourself with the ingredients you can find. You should be responsible for your lifestyle choices, you won’t make it very far with others expecting to cater to your needs everywhere you go.

I am guessing it is not easy being a vegetarian in Japan because Japanese people do not embrace vegetarianism to the extent Western countries do. Fish has always been a long part of their food history so going without it would be difficult.

Actually, Japan is not very friendly to meat eaters too. Most of the dishes here are only about 1-5% of meat or fish with rice or noodles or other cheap highly processed vegetarian stuff occupying the remaining 95% of the plate.

Furthermore, vegans cannot eat eggs.

Cannot or choose not to? Big difference.

If you are eating soba "soup" without dashi, you are not eating Japanese food so may as well go somewhere that suits your self imposed dietary restrictions.

Who wrote this. If they bother to do any research they would realise how stupid this article is. Japan slow to cater for vegans. The 40th emperor, Tenmu, enacted a law to prohibit the eating of animals in the 7th century (year 675).  Yes real slow. Dashi was still used as Kombu and water.

Amused that I got -9 on the comments. Greggs also do delicious vegan doughnuts. Japanese konbini chains should contact them about buying the recipes.

It probably needs a foreign chain to introduce the change.

Does anyone else remember when it was impossible to find a coffee shop that didn't stink of cigarette smoke? At that time if you ask if there was a no smoking area, they would show you a no smoking table right next to one where people could smoke. If you asked about no smoking coffee shops, people would tell you they would never work in Japan/. Then Starbucks opened. It was a hit. Why? The coffee was not particularly good. It was because the foreign company was not as conservative as Japanese companies, not as averse to risk.

As soon as they showed it could be done, Japanese companies followed.

It will be the same with vegetarian food. I remember asking a vegetarian (not vegan) friend where he went to eat. He told me he went to Indian or Italian restaurants because they always had something vegetarian on the menu. He also told me, and this was many years ago that now every restaurant in Britain always has at least one vegetarian dish on the menu.

Another reason for vegetarian food on the menu is that it also halal.

If there is demand, someone should make a vegan form of concentrated men-tsuyu, basically the base for udon soup. 

Kombu-Tsuyu made from concentrated kelp extract already exists and can be found in any supermarket.

Making udon noodles and tempura requires eggs, which in my opinion is cruelty free if free range.

I’m sure there are alternatives to eggs in making tempura batter, and soba noodles is just buckwheat, water and salt.

So a vegan/vegetarian soba or udon can be made easily from regular supermarket ingredients.

Was a vegetarian in the early nineteen seventies in Japan. The problem occurred when traveling, trying to find somewhere to eat. (Different from cooking at home.)

"Does this dish have meat in it? Can you make something without the meat?" The staff usually had no idea what I was saying. Eventually it would come, but with ham in it. "Oh, is ham meat?"

It was even worse in Korea, even with the question written in Korean on a piece of paper. Blank looks.

Shojin ryori was always the perfect solution, but highly specialized, if you could find it, and if you could afford it.

I always laugh at people that claim to care about the environment and global warming, and then eat a diet high in animal products. The hypocrisy is absurd.

I see more and more vegetarian options here, but way behind most countries. Indian restaurants are the best bet here for options.

Japan slow to cater for vegetarians despite growing demand

So reads the headline. The article, however, features foreigners. It makes me wonder if the demand will ever be met as tourist numbers may not be reliable from year to year. Remember that these are the same tourists whose numbers posters here have complained about.

Actually, Japan is not very friendly to meat eaters too. Most of the dishes here are only about 1-5% of meat or fish with rice or noodles or other cheap highly processed vegetarian stuff occupying the remaining 95% of the plate.

Yeah, this is why Japanese people are healthier and live longer than westerners.

Stay home if you don't like it.

Among the top 20 countries and regions where visitors to Japan come from, India has the highest rate of vegetarians, accounting for 20.2 percent

39 percent of Indians are vegetarians.

The vegetarian tourists to Japan from India who are fussy about their diet will generally carry their ready-to-eat curry packets which can be prepared into meals very easily.

But the issue here is that if you are a tourist and you are only eating self-prepared meals that is income which the local restaurants are not earning from tourists.

So no one is forcing the restaurants to make more vegetarian options available and no one is forcing vegetarian tourists to forego their dietary restrictions.

It's simple Economics.

Beerdeliveryguy

Agree with your comments - but I've never heard of eggs being used in udon making. The purists around here - Shikoku - would have a fit.

And yes eggless tempura also is not so rare. Often called Shojin-Age and recipe uses quite a lot of cornstarch or kuzu with light flour.

Funny - when I came to Japan years ago, because of buddhism and shojin ryori, I just assumed true vegetarian dishes were aplenty - but not so.

A bit like how I thought Genmai - brown rice - would be common, but it isn't and in fact is avoided by most folks.

This article is mainly about tourists, but compared to Europe or the US there are very, very few vegetarians and vegans in Japan, and in general very little understanding for why someone would not want to eat meat.

I tried eating vegitarian for a while for health reasons, but eating out was basically limited to Indian food and shoujin ryori.

Agree with your comments - but I've never heard of eggs being used in udon making.

My apologies for the clumsy wording. I meant to say that Tempura Udon would require eggs.

The noodles themselves are as you said; just flour, water, and salt.

Vegetarians are every where in every country. One solution. Eat vegetarians. Pa da!

Vegetarians are every where in every country. One solution. Eat vegetarians. Pa da!

Your favourite species from China will love doing that. Allow more immigration from China and they will eat all vegetarians once they are done with everything else. Pa da!

Yeah, this is why Japanese people are healthier and live longer than westerners.

Actually meat is not the problem in the Western diet. It's all the processed carbohydrates and foods with tons of sugars that come with it. You see a lot of people eating lots of meat, eggs with high cholestrol that live well into their nineties. They eat naturally and avoid all the processed rubbish.

@ Nibek32

Indians taking care of envirornment because most are vegetarians.

What a laugh if ever you knew anything about India's cleanliness !

I don't like when at restaurants being asked if I have special needs. I should tell them if so. It brings about loss of time, costs, etc.

When in Rome do as Romans do.