Comments on: How to survive as a travelling vegetarian

By: Language Hacking & Language Learning with Digital Nomad Benny the Irish Polyglot | Thrilling Heroics

Fri, 28 May 2010 19:04:18 +0000

[...] How to survive as a traveling vegetarian [...]

By: Allard

Allard — Wed, 26 May 2010 17:13:21 +0000

I thought this blog would just be a good guide for my polyglottery, but as a vegetarian, this also has some great tips

By: Niels Bom

Niels Bom — Wed, 26 May 2010 14:18:19 +0000

I really identify with your story, I slowly started disliking meat and then fish. What also struck me is that after a meal with a lot of meat in it, I felt more heavy and tired. If I ate vegetarian I almost never felt that way.

I'm also slowly starting to dislike dairy and egg products, but it could also be that that is a conceptual thing.

By: GlobalButterfly

GlobalButterfly — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 06:58:32 +0000

Hey, I so didn't know that you were a veggie!!! That's a wonderful thing to have in common. I can't brag that I've been one my entire life like you, wow, but I've been one for a decade now. I can say that it was the BEST decision I've ever made. Anyway, really the only country that I've had a very difficult time with was Japan. A couple of times I had to have fish or shrimp or I would have gone hungry. Argentina and Brasil were a breeze!

By: Lauren, Melbourne

Lauren, Melbourne — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 10:13:54 +0000

In Australia, the Burger King franchise is called Hungry Jacks. I'm omnivorous, but I prefer their vegie burger 10 times over their beef and chicken burgers. It's tastier than some vegie burgers I've had at proper restaurants. I recently discovered I'm lactose intolerant so I've had a few without cheese, and they were still very satisfying. Aussie capitals generally have no shortage of veg options (especially Melbourne, where I live now), but it's good to have a late-night option that you can get everywhere.

By: Catia | Vagabond Roots

Catia | Vagabond Roots — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 00:43:10 +0000

I'm just starting my open ended round the world trip, and as a vegan found the first few days difficult. I agree that the word vegetarian and vegan seem to mean vastly different things to different people / in other cultures. I wrote a post a last night about my experiences as a vegan & newbie traveller in Mexico with a few tips I picked up the first month.

I've started to cook for myself and have used Happy Cow a few times to 'hunt down' my meals. (I love how you explain that I may try that myself at some point.)

By: lindsaygr

lindsaygr — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 03:55:56 +0000

Hey, it is important that if you are travelling and you want to keep things Kosher, you find an apartment with those conditions too. For instance, last year when I travelled to Argentina, I was looking only for Kosher apartments in Buenos Aires because I thought that is the best option in our case.
Well, that would be my tip for the day.
Cheers,
Lindsay

By: Benny the Irish polyglot

Benny the Irish polyglot — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 16:29:30 +0000

Thanks for sharing

By: linguaholic

linguaholic — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 00:15:26 +0000

Nice post. I'm vegan and have never been outside of Europe, so not to many problems there, though Poland and Asturias were tricky (in Spain, they seem to think “vegetarian” means “with vegetables”…). When travelling on my own, I don't have much trouble – as you said, there's something in every supermarket (learning to read ingredient lists in the local language is a plus) and Couchsurfers are helpful people. It's travelling in groups (e.g. on a universitiy trip) that can get annoying because you're always “the problem” … at least I feel like a nuisance when everybody has to wait for me to ask the waiter a million questions, haha. One thing that is quite useful (for vegans) is the Vegan Pasport, with explanations in many languages (also nice for the language geek in general ).
You might know it already, but if you go to Rome again you HAVE to eat at the Beehive Café. Not the best place to meet locals (it's run by Americans and it's a bit hidden, being part of a hotel) but they have the most heavenly food I have ever eaten. And in Berlin you should check out Vöner: vegetarian kebab, it's great! And did I mention Hermans in Stockholm? .
By the way, I totally agree about Esperantists. At SES this summer there were some 95 people, of which about 30 vegetarian, of which 7 vegan (and others converted later because the vegans had the yummiest breakfast!).

By: Lisa

Lisa — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 09:12:52 +0000

Actually, that's my reason. It works if you have a good story to go with it. This is *absolutely true*, btw, not made up. I always used to eat meat. My parents made it at home, every restaurant we went to had it (my grandparents are picky with restaurants and tend to only go to greek places or chicken ones), and it just wasn't an option to not eat it. But my mom always thought I was a very picky eater. I didn't like veal, lamb, turkey, any kind of fish, liver, etc. The list goes on and on. So she basically fed me chicken every day, but I didn't like that either. I did have some stuff that I liked. My grandmother's chicken curry, etc. Then one summer about 6 years ago I was away from home for the whole summer. Part of the time I was staying at a friend's place catsitting for her, then I went right from there to working as a language monitor at my university for a summer program, which meant staying in a dorm on campus, and then to a swing dance camp. At all of these places, wherever we went there were always vegetarian options. I got back home and my mom was making chicken. I just smelled it and then, on the spot, realized that I had not eaten meat the entire summer. When cooking I never used any, when eating out I always went for the vegetarian options without realizing it because it looked better. THEN I realized that the meat stuff I DID “like”, the meat was so much hidden by the taste of the very tasty sauces and I liked it because compared to other stuff, I could not taste the meat. But on my poor mother's side of things, I came home, she happily said that she was cooking me chicken and it was almost done, I paused for a strangely long period of time looking like I was thinking hard, and then told her I was actually vegetarian by accident, just realized it now, and sorry, but was there anything with just vegetables? Just the smell grossed me out.

At first I thought I would not be strict about it, but then would notice the taste in broths and in small amounts, and though I used to like seafood, I slowly got turned off by it more and more, and then eventually noticed I had become a strict vegetarian quite by accident. It was not the easiest thing… my bubby was annoyed that suddenly I couldn't eat most of the stuff she made (this is the only person that “I don't like meat” does not work, because she takes it as an insult to her cooking), or most of the stuff my mom made (which mattered less, cause I just started cooking my own food at home). My grandmother on my mom's side thankfully didn't care, and prepared her delicious curry for me without any meat in it at all. Along with that, I was thinking there are so many secondary reasons to be vegetarian, that what was I doing eating meat if I didn't even like it?

I guarantee that if you tell someone this story anywhere in the world, they will not argue with you, and they will respect you for it.

Very sorry for the long post; it's a long story.

By: Lisa

Lisa — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 08:50:31 +0000

I just came across your blog for the first time through the Couchsurfing vegetarian group. I'm vegetarian too (I just don't like meat, fish or seafood), I love to travel, and I love learning languages. So I find your blog great! If you ever come over to Korea, let me know, I'd love to meet you (and treat you to some orange juice), and even teach you some Korean to boot (I'm trying to become fluent in Korean now)!

Right now I live in Seoul, and adapting to be vegetarian was hard at first. A lot of people will tell you something has no meat in it without thinking of things like broth. I've been offered things like japchae with meat in it and had people who were really trying to be helpful say "it's only got a LITTLE meat in it". The longer I live here, the more I learn who I can trust to know about these things and who I can't. One trick I've picked up, is that if I see/hear about something I'm not sure about, I ask my friends how you make it at home. "Yes, it has no meat in it! First you take some of the soy based biji and you put it in a pan with some pork.... ohh...". If I ask specific questions, it usually works. Sometimes things are difficult, cause Koreans tend to not want to make any changes to anything on a menu (I'm not vegan, but the cheese they use for the cheap pizzas is so bad, I don't like it. Try to order a pizza here without cheese; it's pretty much impossible. They will not do it), but they will often make some changes for foreigners and they are usually very helpful. Now I've got some Korean friends who are vegetarians too, and they ALWAYS know. They are very helpful. I have one friend who, though not vegetarian, has many friends who are, and always can be relied to tell me if something is vegetarian or not. He's also recommended new vegetarian restaurants to me, or places with vegetarian food.

I also heard of a vegetarian traveller who went to China with no Chinese. He said that he often was able to actually go into the kitchen and watch them prepare the stuff he was going to eat, and tell them to leave out things that weren't vegetarian.

PS. I love the "I'm vegetarian because I'm crazy" idea, and will definitely use that in the future.

By: Benny the Irish polyglot

Benny the Irish polyglot — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 17:35:55 +0000

I can confirm that Esperantists are the largest international group of any sort that has so many vegetarians, that I have ever come across. Every week-long event always has a vegetarian option for the meals, which a considerable percentage choosing it, and even a vegan option if there is enough of a request for it.

By: Jason

Jason — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 17:29:30 +0000

Benny, I saw in an article on Esperantists that a high proportion of them are veggie. In your opinion is this true?
Tortillas – after visiting mexico 3 times I found out that sometimes / mostly(?) lard is used to make them. Oh dear…
I feel I shouild clarify on my previous entry. I have never knowningly or chosen to eat meat – like Peter Singer I'm a flexible vegan, but even then I would try to avoid cheese due to animal rennet.

By: Benny the Irish polyglot

Benny the Irish polyglot — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 01:09:43 +0000

Unfortunately, all of my trips are several months long so packing any food is not practical for me; I always try to find a local solution. It's made harder in some places since I prefer to eat out than eat in, especially considering how cheap it is outside of Western Europe and North America.
Good luck in Greenland! I hope you find some good veggie food there

By: Benny the Irish polyglot

Benny the Irish polyglot — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 01:08:02 +0000

I really like McDonald's warm apple pastry! They have it in lots of countries. Definitely not a meal, but it's a lovely snack!

By: Benny the Irish polyglot

Benny the Irish polyglot — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 01:06:07 +0000

lol, meat in ice-cream! Unfortunately, as funny as that is, we do need to literally ask all the time. I've requested bread, just bread and discovered when I started tearing it that they had meat incorporated in it. Very good extra point. ALWAYS ASK!!
Look for the Indians? Yet another good idea! Don't know how I'd go about finding them, but I'll definitely keep an eye out for them I've also found that lots of travelling Californians (especially girls) can be vegetarians (not as much as Indians would be, but a remarkably high percentage nonetheless in my experience!)

By: Benny the Irish polyglot

Benny the Irish polyglot — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 01:01:41 +0000

Good point! I was suggesting it as a possibility and alternative to my health reasons, because I've never actually used it. It would work in some situations, but in others people would indeed try to talk you into “liking” it
Thanks for the other suggestion! I'm not religious so I can't use the religious reasons argument, but since religious can be broad and include your moral dispositions, I'm sure lots of people could say that honestly. It's especially useful to know that they would respect it based on using that word. Health and religion tough a nerve with a lot of people and will have them go out of their way much more than if you just said “I don't like it”.
Thanks for the interesting comment

By: Noa

Noa — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 21:31:31 +0000

Great post!
And I'll add a bit from my experience: “I just don't like it” is not a good explanation. I, for example, have full respect and consideration for allergic people, and for religeus people (be that Kosher, Vegeterian or Vegans). I have 0 respect for people who don't like spinach or greens because they didn't get out of the “I don't like it” stage as children (don't get me wrong – I have many friends who are still at it, and quote you their reasons). I assume that people who cooked meat will feel the same. More – “I just don't like it” can be answered with “but you didn't taste it! It is excellent! please try!” which might be fine for people who really don't like something, but really bad for vegetarians.
The replacement of “soy vegeteriano/a” in Equador, Peru & Bolivia is explaining that it is becuase of your religion (& then explaining exactly what do you don't eat, i.e no pollo, no carne, no jamon, no pescado etc.).
The people are religeus, and show much respect for other people's faith.
Specifically about Peru – I was there 10 years ago, and they had some Christian cult called the Albertistas. These guys decided that Jesus was vegetarian, and that he kept Shabath. So almost in every town we went, there was at least 1 restaurant that was owned by one of these guys, with big signs of “Jesus was vegetarian”, and cheap, vegetarian versions of the local food. Great.

By: Noa

Noa — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 19:32:49 +0000

By: R. Standton

R. Standton — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 19:19:01 +0000

As someone vegetarian for the first time in Spain while traveling but dedicated to it (exactly the opposite of what you suggested), I agree completely, and have a few more things to add.

First–I always ask if there's meat/fish/poultry in something. ALWAYS. It does not matter what the dish is (ice cream, for example) and how crazily I know the waitress will look at me, I ask. This is because I've had a number of situations in which I've been sure that “they couldn't possibly put meat in this,” and sure enough…

That being said, when I'm abroad and getting desperate, I look for the Indians. This is of course a generalization, but there is a much higher concentration of vegetarians among Indians, and even if they are not vegetarian, most of the ones I've met know a vegetarian place to eat. That has made my life infinitely easier and I recommend doing that to you all.