International travel is tricky when you have dietary restrictions. Tasting local cuisine is a large aspect of experiencing different cultures and ways of life.
Being a vegetarian is among the simpler diets to accommodate, but forethought can make your experiences much more pleasant.
Whether you’re a vegetarian for ethical reasons, to help the environment, or because red meat and poultry are not that healthy for you, you can take solace in knowing that there are plenty of ways to survive traveling while keeping your diet.
1) How stringent are you?
The first question to answer is how strict you’re going to be about your vegetarian diet. Are you going to avoid any and all meat, forgo your diet for the sake of culture, or pick and choose what’s okay and what isn’t?
I abide by a strict vegetarian lifestyle in my day-to-day life, but when I travel abroad I’ll loosen my diet for seafood, if I’m visiting a place bordering the ocean. Otherwise, I’ll avoid any meat products.
Knowing what your boundaries are will make the experience that much simpler.
2) Ask for an oil change.
In many local mom-and-pop restaurants, especially in Central and South America as well as in China, the cooks don’t use vegetable oil for their delicacies. Sometimes it’s too expensive or rare of a commodity, but other times they simply use animal-based oil, particularly lard.
Cooking with meat is a tradition, and the chefs don’t want to change. I ran into this scenario a lot in Costa Rica.
It might be a bit awkward to pepper your server with questions about their food sources. However, investigating what types of oil your food is cooked with will ensure you’re not accidentally ingesting animal products.
If the chefs have vegetable oil, then ask for your dish to be fried with that, and if they don’t, then you can move on.
3) Visit the market.
One of the most interesting aspects of eating in another country is visiting their open markets and grocery stores. Seeing where people get their food, and what is stocked, can give insight into what a daily diet for the locals might be.
This activity is also helpful in a meat-centric country because it lets you pick and choose what you’re munching on that day. And if everything else fails, you can always nibble on bread and cheese while you bide your time until you find a scrumptious vegetarian meal.
4) Talk the talk.
Communicating with your servers and chefs is paramount to maintaining a vegetarian diet while traveling, especially when you’re not fluent in the languages common in that country. However, learning to say “I’m a vegetarian” in the local tongue may not be helpful, as it may not translate well from English.
Try learning how to say “I don’t eat meat,”or, “I can’t eat meat,” because vegetarian can translate to anything from plain food that doesn’t have meat, to simply no red meat.
5) Research beforehand.
Restaurants can be everywhere, and Yelp isn’t going to help you much in another country. However, if you’re able to find more websites like HappyCow, which is an online listing of vegetarian-friendly restaurants all around the world, then you can plan ahead.
These websites are not extensive because lots of typical local restaurants may have vegetarian options, but the sites do simplify your search process.
6) Head for the fruit.
Every place I’ve traveled where meat is a center dish, fruit has been an excellent fallback. Fruit vendors are relatively easy to find, and they will always be vegetarian. However, do remember that fruit can contain sickness-causing bacteria, so ensure that the fruit is at least washed or peeled before you gnaw away.
7) Snack, don't feast.
Snacking goes hand-in-hand with foreign travel. You’re often on the move, and sitting down for an actual meal means taking time away from another landmark, museum or attraction.
Swinging by the grocery store or street market, and grabbing portable vegetarian foods lets you snack throughout the day, and allows you to continue exploring without running into a restaurant where the only decent meals come from animals.
Traveling as a vegetarian is going to be easier in some countries than others. It’s completely possible that you're going to be the only vegetarian a chef or restaurant will see that day. Expecting special treatment isn’t going to get you far.
But if you prepare beforehand, walk into the trip being a bit flexible, and have a hankering for snacks, then you’ll have plenty of energy to explore to your heart’s content.
Sources:
A Q&A on the carcinogenicity of the consumption of red meat and processed meat. Who.int. Accessed: Wednesday, Jan. 20, 2016.
http://www.who.int/features/qa/cancer-red-meat/en
HappyCow. happycow.net. Accessed: Wednesday, Jan. 20, 2016.
http://www.happycow.net
7 Tricks on How to Travel with a Special Diet. Travelzoo.com. Accessed: Wednesday, Jan. 20, 2016.
http://www.travelzoo.com/blog/7-tricks-travel-special-diet
Reviewed January 22, 2016
by Michele Blacksberg RN
Edited by Jody Smith