trying to eat vegan when you are away from home

[ozjay]

Hi all,

I've just returned from a trip to china for work,my first time away from home as a vegan,

the first problem i had was on the flight,vegetarian food no vegan(maybe if you ring in advance they could arrange it?),but the other problem was working in the factory, as they provided the food ,and i had difficulty trying to explain what i wanted as i did't want to offend,i just tried not eating the meat,but kept getting grilled about why i wouldn't eat it all,the hotel was te only place i could eat vegan,once the job is done they take you to a nice restaurant to celebrate

and apart from fries theres no vegan or vegetarian,so i had the seafood,would it have been rude for me to just order fries,what would other people do in this situation.as i have to go again in three months and am thinking of not eating until i get back to hotel,but i am working thirteen hour shifts so i'll probally cave in.

 

p.s. i was violently sick after the restaurant for a couple of days karmic retribution for eating animals again i think

[xCx]

The only one real thing you own here in life are your believes, your moral sense of right and wrong and once you've compromised these for the sake of others, you'll end up an empty shell of a man.

[zinzen]

Woulda ate fries and thats all.

But I am sure with a little planning your next trip wont suck as much

[ozjay]

xCx i agree with what your'e saying about morals and beliefs,i've sent a few emails to the airlines

to see how they accomodate to vegans no replies yet,and have told my boss about my being vegan ,as initialy i didn't want to offend anyone or look bad in the eyes of the company as he came along to china with me,but i think everything will be better next time,or it will be my last trip, my conscience and stomach couldn't handle any more meat eating.i feel like im starting fresh again or that im a hypocrite.

[CollegeB]

You can call yourself a hypocrite, but I wouldn't worry about that too much. Thing is the trip wasn't planned well for your diet. I imagine china is hard for vegans anyhow, but being in a work environment made things harder. What city were you in, check it on this list or maybe even a neighboring city...http://www.happycow.net/asia/china/

 

I tend to eat more raw foods when traveling. Fruits, nuts, salads and the like as those are safe for vegans. Take a long some protein powder or better yet to make up for nutrients you are not going to be eating a whole food meal replacement like vega would be worth the investment. I always pack a lot of clif bars too for snacking.

 

Also do a search about being vegan in china.

 

Some results I got from a search were:

http://www.gadling.com/2007/04/19/a-canadian-in-beijing-being-vegan-in-china-part-1/

 

http://www.vegetarian-china.info/

 

http://asianvegan.blogspot.com/2005/08/china-study-ii.html

 

Good luck. I know you'll be ready for your next trip. I hope it is as enjoyable and fulfilling as it is productive!

[ozjay]

thanks for the info college b ,i went to dongguan the happy cow website mention 3 vegetarian restaurants ,i'm sure my boss should be able to arrange it,now that i have told him that i can only eat vegan, he was ok with that (even though he implied that people who are vegan ,only do it because they think it's cool to be different).The other websites were also helpfull even giving chinese phrases to say i only eat vegeatbles (wo chi su). I'm optimistic that my next trip will be as vegan as possible.

[CollegeB]

Yeah man hope it all goes well. Keep us posted about your preparations as they might be helpful to other vegan travelers.

[beforewisdom]

I think the vegan society of the UK has cards you can get in various foriegn languages explaining that you want vegan food.

 

I will go to lengths to avoid offending people at work, but eating animals is not one of them. You could have told them you had medical reasons for not doing so. Put a box of cliff builder bars, a bag of vega ( Robert don't ever say I didn't plug you ) or a jar of peanut butter in one of your suit cases for emergencies.

[CollegeB]

those little emergen-c packets are also great. I take them with me almost daily.

[bronco]

Planning ahead is the key. Airlines allmost certainly can arrange vegan food if you ask in advance. When I have been traveling with work and doing work related lunches I have sometimes called the restaurant in advance to ask if they can arrange something vegan, which allways worked. I realized that it might be a bit trickier in a foregin country though, but if you have some kind of host there you could ask them to help you? Also remember that your business partners in China also probably have an interest in having a good business relationship to you, which would mean being a good host and help you out with a small detail like this .

[Im Your Man]

What's rude is that they are giving you corpses for you to feed on.

Away from home but close to another home; everywhere on the planet is kind of 'home'.

Sometimes I dont eat for 24 hours eventhough I could eat vegan food. There's no emergency.