My First and Last VEGGIE LIFE

Hi:)
How was your vegetarian experience?
Me? I tried it on Monday. It was hard and memorable, but I learned a lot from this experience. Before talking about what I thought, let me iintroduce how I spend with vegetalian life.

When I started my vegetarian day, I decide being "VEGAN" for it. The reason why I chose it is because I will not have this experience in the future so harder one is worth trying for me. My VEGAN LIFE has started at June 13 0:00am. I sometimes eat some snacks or dinner at this time, so I felt a bit hungry but I decied not to eat at this time because it would be hard to distingish which food is safe for vegan people.

Then I woke up at 7:30, I faced my first problem. Usually I eat rice and "natto" and miso soup for my breakfast, and I thought it would be OK for VEGAN. however it is not!! miso soup is using fish soup stock and "natto" as well. Instead of them, I eat soybean curd with putting only soy sauce. I couldn't put even dried bonito on it.Wow, VEGAN is not easy:(

On that day, I had this class. it means I ate lunch at KUIS. My usually lunch at school is "karaage"-meal. Can I have it? Of cource NOT!! You know how much I love it, so it was so hard to give up having it. So I tried to choose something which didn't contain any animal product...Oh No!! I have NOTHING to eat!! I felt disapointed about it. I could only get salad. To my delight, there are "inari-sushi", so I had them too. I had no choice...

After lunch time, I had to leave there are bacause of my part time job. My working time was from 3:00pm to 11:30pm. I usually buy snacks and dinner at starbucks because I can buy them with some discount. however, I found that there are NO FOOD for Vegan at starbucks!!! They have some food with vegetable, but all of them include eggs. I had to buy my dinner at convenience store. I wanted to eat some rice ball, but there are nothing which doesn't contain animal products. I picked up soybean curd salad as well as my breakfast. Plus, you may know it that we can have free starbucks bevetage during my work time. I love "chai tea latte" but of course it contains milk, so I could drink only tea or coffee. (Though I actually could drink soy milk, but we sometimes use same cups for making soy milk and milk beverage, so I avoid them) Actually It was hardest time of the day because I made so many beverages of milk!! I hate my job only that day:(

my Vegan life has finished there. I think I didn't feel full for all day. Is that only because of VEGAN diet? I don't think so. I didn't have any food which was from only vegetables. This is my first and last VEGAN DAY of my life. My honest impression for this experience is "it's too hard for me to live without any meat and animal products!" It's clear that I am the person who needs meat!!

During my Vegan life, I found some difficulties for being vegan.

1. Only a few choices for begetarian

When I was trying Vegan diet, my saddest time was that there are no choice to eat something at out side. I felt big disappointment especially I was in KUIS. I knew that there are some ELI teacheres or students who are vegetarian at KUIS, however, we don't have any menu for them. Even though we have so many foreign students and teachers compare with other universities, there are almost no choice for them! I have japanese vegetarian friend, who has already graduated from KUIS though, he said "It's too hard to find meal only from vegetables." In his case, he never bought lunch at KUIS and always brought it by his own. It means that vegetarianism has not become widespread to Japanese people yet.

2. we never know how our food made from
I also felt troublesome that we couldn't know exactly how our food made from. When I went to convenience store for looking for my dinner, I checked each food ingredients, but I was not sure that all those information were true or not. I think this way because as I said above, we sometimes put milk and soy milk together or using same washer to clean it. So, even if the information of some products say "we don't use egg for it", we never know the process of meking them. Only thing we can do is trust them if you eat it. That's why many vegetarian cook their meal by their own as my friend. It would be the surest way to have vegetarialn meals.

3. Japanese society needs more apprehension and knowledge for begetarian

Some people may say "Japan has developed as a global society". I don't agree with that from the begetarians' point of view. I think there are plenty of foreign products in Japan. We can get almost anythig from overseas now, but how many people have thought about the diet of foreigners? Of course there are many Japanese vegetarian though, the percentages of vegetarian is much higher among foreigners. These days, there are so many foreign restaurants, but I hadn't care about people who are vegetarian. I am also the person who has never thought about the vegetarian life in Japan, but I found that it is so inconvenient for them through this experience.

To conclude, this experience gave me a great oppotunity to think about real vegetarian life in Japan. I tried it only one day, but I know how they feel. So I can understand how difficult to being vegetarian in Japan. In addition, we need some knowlede and understanding when we deal with vegetarian. I want my friends to try one-day vegetarian experience as well.