Forum - View topicAnswerman - Are There Any Vegetarians In Japan?
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Key
Moderator
 Posts: 18432 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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Oh, it's still pretty common in the West. That's why you can even buy plastic fruit to use as a not-ever-spoiling centerpiece. |
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SpacemanHardy
Posts: 2509 |
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Don't forget Nadia from The Secret of Blue Water. |
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Kikaioh
 Posts: 1205 Location: Antarctica |
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Years ago on a trip to Japan, I was staying at a hostel, and one of my roommates was a vegetarian. I talked with him for a bit, and I couldn't help but notice that he seemed to look a bit sickly, and it sounded like he was having a hard time finding vegetarian meals while traveling (IIRC he was thinking to cut his trip early because of it).
I admire vegetarians, and I try to limit my meat intake as well, though after having tried it out myself, I've found that it's a bit too difficult for me to take on completely. |
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CatSword
 Posts: 1489 |
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Marik from Yu-Gi-Oh! has his least favorite food listed as "anything with meat". |
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poisondusk
 Posts: 67 Location: Brighton, UK |
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I'm a fairly strict vegetarian, and I lived for a year in Japan as part of my university course. I was living in dorms, so I had access to a kitchen and generally cooked for myself. I got very good at scanning ingredient lists in supermarkets for anything related to meat or fish.
Eating out as a vegetarian, which is what most tourists will be doing, is a lot more difficult. There was a time or two when I had to settle for a sweet crepe (or melon pan, or something equally insubstantial) for lunch because there wasn't anywhere selling anything vegetarian nearby. In addition, while I refused any actual pieces of meat or fish, there were times when I had to eat things with animal-derived ingredients like fish sauce to avoid being rude or causing a fuss. I probably also ate plenty of things that weren't vegetarian without realising it. That's something that you just have to accept while being in Japan. That said, it's not impossible to be a vegetarian in Japan, it just takes a bit of research and planning. Conveniences stores are easy to find, and often have something you can eat. The city I lived in had two Indian restaurants, which had plenty of choice for vegetarians. I found that by far the easiest way to explain being vegetarian in places like Japan is to tell them that if an animal had to die to make any part of the food, I can't eat it. Aside from covering all the bases with regards to meat, fish, stock and so on, it sounds rather serious and spiritual, so it tends to stick in people's minds better. |
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maximilianjenus
Posts: 2902 |
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meat can easily cost 100 usd per pound, so good luck. |
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kotomikun
Posts: 1205 |
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Will be interesting to see if they can maintain that fish-based diet as the global-warming-induced acidification and deoxygenation of the oceans causes enormous mass extinctions over the next few decades... Though I guess there's always farming.
Although, the main reason they eat so much fish is because they have barely any farmland. And it's generally wasteful to use it to raise animals--contrary to what carnivores seem to believe, animals have to eat, most of what farm animals eat is farmed by humans (mostly corn in the US), and there's a huge loss of efficiency in the process. Yet Japan apparently eats a lot of pork and beef and chicken in addition to fish (almost certainly due to Western influence). Which feeds right back into global warming. None of this is sustainable, in Japan or anywhere else, but I doubt much will change until we have no other choice. The hot thing on the interwebs these days is shunning people for cooking steak too thoroughly, so it's not hard to imagine the general public opinion of vegetarianism. Maybe if lab-grown meat becomes incredibly cheap? |
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Cptn_Taylor
Posts: 925 |
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{Edit}: Key clearly said to watch the soapboxing on this topic. Since you chose not to your post was removed. ~ Psycho 101
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Exalted Incarnate
Posts: 283 Location: In the memory of time... |
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The whole concept of veganism is self contradictory in a way. Vegetarians say it's wrong to kill animals when there are other things to avaliabe eat, but it's ok to eat plants which are technically living things too and plants lacking traits people have isn't a good reason to justify eating them over animals. Humans can't directly consume inorganic material, people must consume other living things. But if it's just a preference that's another story, although not a healthy one.
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seoulman1985
 Posts: 110 |
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Director Anno Hideaki is particularly notable for not eating meat. In his younger days, he survived off milk and junk food. Once he got married though, he's dieted and changed his eating habits, because at one point, his body fat percentage was near 40%!
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RestLessone
 Posts: 1426 Location: New York |
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The argument is less about living things and more about the concepts of pain and suffering. Plants lack brains and central nervous systems (as do certain animals, like sponges) and are not conscious, so do not experience pain nor suffering as we define it. The whole of their responses comes down to automatic, unconscious responses to stimuli. That is the moral aspect, though it leaves out other issues such as the meat industry's contribution to global climate change and worker abuse. Some people reduce meat or cut it out for those reasons alone. Also, a properly planned vegan or vegetarian diet is considered as healthy as any other. |
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Showsni
 Posts: 641 |
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If I were going to change my diet for moral reasons, I suppose it would be a simple "kill nothing" rule. So, you can eat fruit (so long as you don't destroy the seeds), unfertilised eggs, milk, animals that have died of natural causes, some harvested leaves that don't kill the whole plant, and so on.
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Afezeria
 Posts: 817 Location: Malaysia, Kuantan. |
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I never actually become acquainted with any vegetarian whether it is online or offline and I don't heard much about this on the local media either. Despite so however, this country has a lot of meals that is based on using vegetables alone as core ingredient so no problem here. I don't feel like changing diet anytime soon, or quite possibly never.
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H. Guderian
Posts: 1255 |
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Interacting with enough Japanese things over time and the phrase "Food is Culture" comes to mind when seeing this. For a people of the sea, it is only to be expected there's so much fish around. My only problem arises when someone imposes their preference onto another culture that didn't ask for it, as was highlighted by others. You don't go to a tropical island to avoid the beach. You don't go to a family reunion to avoid the family. You don't go to Japan to avoid fish. I mean you can, but the question I would pose is at what point do you restrain your own preferences for the greater culture? We visit Japan to see how they do things over there, not to show off to the locals.
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dormcat
Encyclopedia Editor
 Posts: 9902 Location: New Taipei City, Taiwan, ROC |
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Ever since I had acquired the ability of literacy, any large and time-consuming event -- business meeting, summer camp, academic seminar, class reunion, you name it -- with meal(s) served that requires pre-event registration would have a "vegetarian" option on the registration form. No exception. Just my two cents. |
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