I have been to around 30 veggie eateries in Taoyuan, Taipe, Cung Li, Tainan, and Kaoshiong area.
To my surprise, only the ones at Fo Guang Shan temple in Kaoshiong served foods that tasted vegan.
The other ones’ tasted yucky. I am wondering whether they use pork oil.
What are your experiences with vegan living in Taiwan?
Do contact me, we can share stories and do things togather, as friends/fellow vegans.
One of my hobbies here is visiting Buddhist temples, so far, I have only visited one, yes, Fo Guang Shan. If you happen to have the same hobby, please feel free to say hello at vivavegan @ gmx.de (my e-mail address) .
Thank you for reading and /or responding to my post(s), :)!
They wouldn’t use animal oil in cooking, but there have been reports that quite a lot of so-called vegetarian food products in Taiwan actually contain meat. Best to avoid things like “vegetarian chicken”, “vegetarian meat” and so on. Rather, just eat actual vegetables!
Another annoyance is the widespread use of monosodium glutamate. It makes my face sweat and gives me a sore tongue and throat. There tends to be a lot of it in the soup, so maybe give the soup a miss.
My favorite vegan food in Taiwan is my own home cooking. Buddhists might not like it because I make liberal use of onions and garlic and sometimes add rice wine or other alcohol.
(I am not quite a vegan but I do like vegan food!)
There may be food that is labelled vegetarian and still contains animal products. However, I think most vegetarian restaurants are run by buddhists and I doubt that they - against their belief - put in animal products just to make it taste “better”.
I think Vidyasvari’s problem is that a lot of veg-food is prepared in a way that it does taste like meat.
My experience also is that people are very strict in what they call vegetarian. If you ask a regular store if they have anything vegetarian they say no, just because they are not a vegetarian store. Although, they might have noodles with tomato sauce which apparently they don’t see as vegetarian food and will say no to your request.
[quote=“rice_t”]There may be food that is labelled vegetarian and still contains animal products. However, I think most vegetarian restaurants are run by buddhists and I doubt that they - against their belief - put in animal products just to make it taste “better”.[/quote]Agree with Rice_t. I can’t see that many – if any – vege restaurant owners would allow animal products to be in the food they serve.
There may be some unscrupulous manufacturers who have used animal ingredients in vege foods, though. This isn’t unique to Taiwan – does anyone remember the Linda McCartney vege sausage scandal? Linda McCartney (Paul’s wife) has a UK company which makes vege sausages, burgers and cutlets which taste almost like the “real thing”. A U.S. company licensed the Linda McCartney brand, but problems arose when they decided – without telling anyone – that it was cheaper to use real meat!
That’s the story as I remember it, anyway. Correct me if I’m wrong.