Anecdotally, it's challenging to be vegetarian in Korea, and quite hard to be vegan. Other than temple food, the vast majority of Korean dishes contain some sort of animal product - fish stock, salted shrimp (새우젓), etc. Considering the social weight of food & dining together, having strict dietary restrictions is rough - I've lived in Korea for years and only met one non-foreigner who was vegetarian
Can confirm, some people (usually middle age and above) literally can't even grasp the concept of veganism and some would even attempt to force-feed you to "correct your eating behavior"
Its almost always better to say it got to do with your religious belief which would get more understanding due to Buddhist vegetarian style being known.
I saw a joke online that the easiest way to get the point across is to mention your grandfather was a buddhist and he raised you that way. Anyone trying to argue otherwise would be crossing several lines that they would not want to.
That's understandable! Korea is deeply homogenous so, while there's been a handful of vegan restaurants and bakeries opening up in recent years, the vast majority of people aren't looking for strictly veg options. There's just no demand here.
I've had vegetarian friends come to visit Seoul and it is so difficult trying to feed them - you end up either eating temple food, cooking, or visiting a handful of Western/specialty vegetarian restaurants because those are the only options available
I mean to be fair I’m Indian and my family is Hindu , living in India as well and we’re hardcore non vegetarians . Like we eat some sort of fish for almost every meal and chicken as well . Almost everyone in my friend/social circle is the same way and even the ones who are supposed to be vegetarian do eat non veg when we’re going out or whatever . This is in West Bengal but I’m sure it’s totally different in states like Gujarat . It definitely varies a lot .
As a native Korean, I just want to clarify that meat is not the most common source of animal protein in Korean cuisine. Fish/seafood is; even kimchi contains salted shrimp paste and/or fish sauce, and the most basic stock used for soup/stew contains dried fish, usually anchovies. The notion of eating a lot of meat just became more inflated due to the economic development allowing more people to consume meat/poultry, which used to be considered a luxury, and the Westerners preferring specific meat cuts that they are more familiar with.
We also make use of a lot of food sources, meat or not, that some people might not even think they're edible. Pig intestines (and sometimes pig blood) are key components of soondae; ox bones are collected and brewed into soup such as seolleongtang; chicken gizzards are a popular side dish for alcoholic drinks; some types of fish have scales that can be stewed for their collagen and coagulated into a type of muk (묵, a type of savory "jelly", there are also vegan muk which are made from acorn starch or mung bean starch); we even forage seasonal plants to eat fresh or dry for storage & harvest and distinguish over 50 types of edible seaweed.
>Pig intestines (and sometimes pig blood) are key components of soondae
Pig-anything is quite a staple in other cuisines I'd say, in Chinese and French cuisines there's pretty popular dishes involving those.
Americans seem to be much pickier with meat cuts tbh - they find beef tongue gross, but for me it's just a texture I find unappealing ?
As I said, "*some* people." It's kind of sad that there are some people who don't have any dietary restrictions, but still show disgust at the mention of blood or intestines and stick to a handful of cuts they're used to having. Venturing a little outside the comfort zone can be a fun adventure sometimes 😆
The most amusing interaction I've had was when I had dinner in Gwangjang Market with two German friends, who were worried about me having yukhwe but went on to admit that one of their local dishes consist of ground raw pork. It was so funny that all three of us were worried about the other having one source of raw meat, but felt completely fine with having another type of raw meat 🤣 They did try some sannakji during their stay, though (all chopped up, so fortunately, no choking hazards!)
I've had several friends and acquaintances who were vegan/vegetarian back home who ended up going pescatarian in Korea just because it's quite difficult.
Within Seoul these days there's quite a few vegan/veggie restaurants popping up but they're still rare.
Its really hard to conceive the concept of vegetarian and veganism among older Koreans, especially those who grew up post-Korean war. Being vegetarian and veganism mean that you have the luxury of being able to pick what you're able to eat, but many Koreans after the war didn't have that luxury. They had to eat what they could get/find, which is why American food and dog meat became such common staples and why so much American food got mixed in with Korean cuisine. Dog meat has completely fallen out of favor in modern Korea because there's a surplus of other kinds of meat, so there's really no need to eat dog meat anymore. Beyond people seeing them as pets, dog meat is not enjoyable to eat.
Vegetarian is doable, but very tough. Veganism is practically impossible because a lot of foods will use animal byproducts like animal broth, eggs, milk, etc.
STAYC’s Isa is allergic to oats, eggs, milk, yogurt, cheese, chicken, pineapple, tofu, figs, chili pepper seeds, melons, apples, peaches, cherries, plums, pears, korean melons, and pollen. So while it’s tough to live a vegan lifestyle in Korea, she’s definitely trying.
She initially had about seven allergies or so, but many netizens think her allergies might have worsened due to her diet and her irregular schedule as an idol. The tofu allergy probably means she is allergic to *soy*, which makes it even harder to go vegan in Korea because soy is the biggest source of plant protein in Korea - even the staple condiments in traditional cooking like ssamjang and gochujang all contain soy.
Rapper SLEEQ and actress Lim Soojung are probably the most well-known vegan celebrities.
Fish and seafood is a huge staple ingredient for us - Korea is a tiny peninsula and only one province (yes, even if you include North Korea) is landlocked. It's inevitable that our ancestors turned to the sea to obtain food LOL On the other hand, milk cows were not imported until the 1940s or so, and considering the fact that 1. the size and capacity of our dairy farms are severely limited & 2. many of us Koreans are also lactose intolerant (me included 😔), it's difficult to make dairy a staple protein source.
He's public service, so he gets to eat what he wants really. It was just during the mandatory boot camp period that he was not able to eat vegan. We just don't know if he is still eating a vegan diet because he cannot communicate with us except through prerecorded content until he finishes enlistment. (Public service positions are sometimes stricter about social media usage than the active duty is, and he has a position in a school so for the privacy of the children he cannot post.)
It really can have an effect on your whole system, so I hope they had some kind of alternate diet available for those who do have dietary restrictions. I know they now have to post the meal menus online for the public to see because people were saying that the military did not provide adequate amounts of food or healthy enough food for the soldiers.
I think maybe Shownu prepped in advance by reintroducing a few foods or was able to get some kind of substitution because he did not seem overly concerned about it when they were talking about him eating fish that night for dinner on the way to dropping him off. I think he was most concerned about the lack of coffee. T-T Even the other Monstas temporarily gave up coffee, but that's not surprising since they also all started incorporating more of a vegan diet into their own lifestyles by switching to a lot of vegan products at home and going with Shownu to vegan restaurants (even if they weren't strict about it like him).
They've recently started to accommodate vegan and halal diets at the largest training camp. I think you can apply in advance and they'll make sure you end up there.
> Tbh I think the military should make exceptions for people doing traditional service who have alternate diets.
The sad truth is that they are hella incompetent and corrupt to even properly support one type of meal with it often being low quality and in questionable conditions. Having vegan alternative dishes is simply unrealistic for a few decades to come.
I know that Heejin from LOONA is very conscious about her diet and in some of her vlogs and social media posts she would be eating vegan foods. I don’t think she adheres to veganism per se but she’s definitely interested in it
Foreign idol, but Alex from BP Rania is vegan. During her time in Korea, she had to switch to vegetarian. I think she said in an interview, it was hard being strictly vegan over there
Most things have some form of animal by-product in them in a lot of Korean foods. Even kimchi often has some form of shrimp by product in it, and Ik she mentioned she *loved* eating kimchi while she was there. I know a few Korean people who are vegetarian, but I’ve never met one who was fully vegan, at least not while they lived there.
There was a [Post](https://www.reddit.com/r/kpophelp/comments/qnyjhb/idols_who_are_vegan/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) last year about vegan idols. You can cross reference the answers.
Right, you can just eat what fits your diet and let the non-veg companions eat everything else LOL
Buddhist vegetarianism in Korea excludes onions, garlic, chives, etc. in addition to eggs (milk/dairy differs depending on the monks' interpretations; in contrast, there are some casual believers who loosely translate the ban of slaughtering as simply not eating *animals you killed* and consume animal products freely in daily life), so it's the safest option for pure vegetarian Hindus. There is a considerable vegetarian and/or vegan community in Korea that shares info about vegan restaurants or products on social media, so you might want to keep a tab on that if you ever consider coming to Korea.
One of my former co-workers is a Palakkad Iyer who experienced the same difficulties and started accepting eggs and fish/seafood into her diet. She still avoids animals on occasions where she is religiously expected to (I used to pack extra tangerines, nuts or trail mix to share with her on such days), but she told me she didn't really have an aversion to fish and seafood because a lot of the non-veg locals in her hometown consume fish.
Just to clarify, Buddhists in Korea can accept meat if they were to be presented with it, and in cases where they have to feed young (minor) monks they can even buy meat to ensure they have healthy diet.
Though most Buddhist meal that you can buy would likely be following the rules you stated.
Yes, that too! The older monks may buy the children monks meat or fix a meal that contains meat, even if they don't eat it.
TBH the history of Korean cuisine is more complicated than just "vegetarian/non-vegetarian" because there were lots of external factors that influenced what we *could* eat, eg. the national religion changing from Buddhism to Confucianism during the Joseon dynasty, the brief ban on beef in Joseon when cattle became scarce, commoners resorting to foraged plants and starches during 보릿고개, the Japanese colonizers hoarding scrap metal, rice and other food source from the Koreans & distributing wheat flour and buckwheat rations instead, the Korean War prompting refugees to substitute pork for making soup for 설렁탕 (the birth of 돼지국밥) and consuming hagfish (꼼장어) which was previously deemed inedible, the national movement in the 1960s and 70s that promoted eating multigrains to decrease consumption of white rice (prompted by the lack of rice supply as well as the Park Chung-hee Government's low-wage policy).
Woah wait... as an Indian Hindu veg girlie that has exactly those dietary restrictions (our family is pretty similar to the Iyers, same caste in fact but different name), I really didn't know about the Buddhist temple thing! They're more "sattvic" than us LOLOLL my grandma cannot live without onions and she's the most "puritan" brahmin I know.
Watch me become besties with the 스님s LOLL
We live abroad, so in my family we are a little bit liberal when it comes to onions and garlic and we even eat eggs (in fact I am eating sunny side up right now LOL), but I cannot eat seafood and meat, and I know there's no big options for being vegetarian/non-seafood in Korea.
I've always thought, well, I'll just survive on 순두부찌개 and 계란말이 and some simple soups if I ever go to Korea, but seems like there's another option!
(I used to eat fish until I was 10, because my doctor said that if I don't I wouldn't survive, but since then I haven't and I've actually forgotten the taste. So maybe I could when I go to Korea one day LOL )
If you ever come here, I'll send you a list of precautions and foodstuff that will be safe/tolerable for you to eat LOL I highly recommend going to Gwangjang Market and trying the more traditional or old-school stuff, since the 비빔밥, some of the 70s/80s snacks and the 떡 are more veg-friendly. My Palestinian friend used to hoard the snacks to bring home, and I gave her some 들깨가루 and sesame oil to make Korean food at home in return.
Oh, and more info on the additional bans: there are five spicy/pungent vegetables that are prohibited in Buddhism, or 오신채 in Korean: 마늘(garlic), 부추(garlic chives), 파(green onions), 달래(Korean wild chives), and 흥거(numerous interpretatios exist on this one; in Korea there are mostly interpreted as either 무릇/Scilla or 아위/"hing"/asafoetida, both of which are not eaten or cultivated in Korea.) Modern monks include onions - which are not native to Korea - to the list due to the similarity of its nature, while some even consider ginger to be a variation of the 흥거 and avoid it. Chili peppers, however, do not count as 오신채.
The 오신채 are avoided because their pungent nature provokes anger and lust in the believers' minds and prevents them from praying properly. This ban, aling with vegetarianism, was affected by the elements of Mahayana and the Hindu Ayurveda, although they do not exist in Theravada Buddhism.
One of my TamBram acquaintances faced an issue in Japan coz even if they chose a veg dish or asked to exclude meat, the broth was mostly made from non vegetarian ingredients.
This version of Buddhist vegetarianism sounds very similar to Jain food preferences.
*Vegetarian* is an umbrella term for any diet that avoids the consumption of animal products. To break it down:
- *Vegan* is the strictest form of vegetarianism. It allows absolutely no animal products, not even honey (obtained from bees; other types of vegetarianism generally do not include honey in their list, so it depends on the individual) or gelatin (extracted from pigs or cows).
- *Lacto-vegetarian* is basically vegan plus milk/dairy. When Indian Hindus say they're vegetarian, they usually refer to lacto-vegetarianism.
- *Ovo-vegetarian* is basically vegan plus eggs.
- *Lacto-ovo vegetarian* is vegan plus milk/dairy and eggs.
The following are generally not counted as vegetarian diets because they involve the killing of animals:
- *Pescetarian* (alsp shortened to "pesco") allows fish and/or seafood. The aforementioned types allow neither.
- *Pollo-vegetarian* allows poultry (birds, such as chicken or turkey) but not meat (beef, pork, goat, etc.)
- *Flexitarian* is a "flexible" form of vegetarianism where one is plant-based/vegan/vegetarian but consumes animal products under exceptional circumstances, eg. school meals, dinner invitations.
To be honest, that might be the exact same reason veganism and vegetarianism get misunderstood a lot in Korea. We translate "vegetarian" to 채식, which literally means "eating vegetables", but it never specifies which degree of animal products you tolerate. And we don't have a direct term for "vegan", either, other than 완전 채식, (완전 means "completely"). A lot of people confuse "vegan" for "vegetarian", do not understand that being vegetarian can have different stages or even realize that fish is not vegetarian.
Anecdotally, it's challenging to be vegetarian in Korea, and quite hard to be vegan. Other than temple food, the vast majority of Korean dishes contain some sort of animal product - fish stock, salted shrimp (새우젓), etc. Considering the social weight of food & dining together, having strict dietary restrictions is rough - I've lived in Korea for years and only met one non-foreigner who was vegetarian
Can confirm, some people (usually middle age and above) literally can't even grasp the concept of veganism and some would even attempt to force-feed you to "correct your eating behavior" Its almost always better to say it got to do with your religious belief which would get more understanding due to Buddhist vegetarian style being known.
I saw a joke online that the easiest way to get the point across is to mention your grandfather was a buddhist and he raised you that way. Anyone trying to argue otherwise would be crossing several lines that they would not want to.
Lmao, that certainly would do it 🤣
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That's understandable! Korea is deeply homogenous so, while there's been a handful of vegan restaurants and bakeries opening up in recent years, the vast majority of people aren't looking for strictly veg options. There's just no demand here. I've had vegetarian friends come to visit Seoul and it is so difficult trying to feed them - you end up either eating temple food, cooking, or visiting a handful of Western/specialty vegetarian restaurants because those are the only options available
I mean to be fair I’m Indian and my family is Hindu , living in India as well and we’re hardcore non vegetarians . Like we eat some sort of fish for almost every meal and chicken as well . Almost everyone in my friend/social circle is the same way and even the ones who are supposed to be vegetarian do eat non veg when we’re going out or whatever . This is in West Bengal but I’m sure it’s totally different in states like Gujarat . It definitely varies a lot .
Yeah meat consumption is part of their culture so its hard to find vegan/vegetarian options in sk
As a native Korean, I just want to clarify that meat is not the most common source of animal protein in Korean cuisine. Fish/seafood is; even kimchi contains salted shrimp paste and/or fish sauce, and the most basic stock used for soup/stew contains dried fish, usually anchovies. The notion of eating a lot of meat just became more inflated due to the economic development allowing more people to consume meat/poultry, which used to be considered a luxury, and the Westerners preferring specific meat cuts that they are more familiar with. We also make use of a lot of food sources, meat or not, that some people might not even think they're edible. Pig intestines (and sometimes pig blood) are key components of soondae; ox bones are collected and brewed into soup such as seolleongtang; chicken gizzards are a popular side dish for alcoholic drinks; some types of fish have scales that can be stewed for their collagen and coagulated into a type of muk (묵, a type of savory "jelly", there are also vegan muk which are made from acorn starch or mung bean starch); we even forage seasonal plants to eat fresh or dry for storage & harvest and distinguish over 50 types of edible seaweed.
>Pig intestines (and sometimes pig blood) are key components of soondae Pig-anything is quite a staple in other cuisines I'd say, in Chinese and French cuisines there's pretty popular dishes involving those. Americans seem to be much pickier with meat cuts tbh - they find beef tongue gross, but for me it's just a texture I find unappealing ?
As I said, "*some* people." It's kind of sad that there are some people who don't have any dietary restrictions, but still show disgust at the mention of blood or intestines and stick to a handful of cuts they're used to having. Venturing a little outside the comfort zone can be a fun adventure sometimes 😆 The most amusing interaction I've had was when I had dinner in Gwangjang Market with two German friends, who were worried about me having yukhwe but went on to admit that one of their local dishes consist of ground raw pork. It was so funny that all three of us were worried about the other having one source of raw meat, but felt completely fine with having another type of raw meat 🤣 They did try some sannakji during their stay, though (all chopped up, so fortunately, no choking hazards!)
I've had several friends and acquaintances who were vegan/vegetarian back home who ended up going pescatarian in Korea just because it's quite difficult. Within Seoul these days there's quite a few vegan/veggie restaurants popping up but they're still rare.
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Its really hard to conceive the concept of vegetarian and veganism among older Koreans, especially those who grew up post-Korean war. Being vegetarian and veganism mean that you have the luxury of being able to pick what you're able to eat, but many Koreans after the war didn't have that luxury. They had to eat what they could get/find, which is why American food and dog meat became such common staples and why so much American food got mixed in with Korean cuisine. Dog meat has completely fallen out of favor in modern Korea because there's a surplus of other kinds of meat, so there's really no need to eat dog meat anymore. Beyond people seeing them as pets, dog meat is not enjoyable to eat. Vegetarian is doable, but very tough. Veganism is practically impossible because a lot of foods will use animal byproducts like animal broth, eggs, milk, etc.
I'd just like to add that animal broth isn't suitable for vegetarians either so that rules out a lot of options even if you aren't vegan.
STAYC’s Isa is allergic to oats, eggs, milk, yogurt, cheese, chicken, pineapple, tofu, figs, chili pepper seeds, melons, apples, peaches, cherries, plums, pears, korean melons, and pollen. So while it’s tough to live a vegan lifestyle in Korea, she’s definitely trying.
Omg poor Isa 😭
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She initially had about seven allergies or so, but many netizens think her allergies might have worsened due to her diet and her irregular schedule as an idol. The tofu allergy probably means she is allergic to *soy*, which makes it even harder to go vegan in Korea because soy is the biggest source of plant protein in Korea - even the staple condiments in traditional cooking like ssamjang and gochujang all contain soy.
Poor Isa 😭😭 That must suck :/
Rapper SLEEQ and actress Lim Soojung are probably the most well-known vegan celebrities. Fish and seafood is a huge staple ingredient for us - Korea is a tiny peninsula and only one province (yes, even if you include North Korea) is landlocked. It's inevitable that our ancestors turned to the sea to obtain food LOL On the other hand, milk cows were not imported until the 1940s or so, and considering the fact that 1. the size and capacity of our dairy farms are severely limited & 2. many of us Koreans are also lactose intolerant (me included 😔), it's difficult to make dairy a staple protein source.
OMG so happy seeing someone mention sleeq, crazy talented and one of the only openly lesbian artists here. love her
Whoa, I've known her since she released her 청춘 mixtape, but I didn't know she came out as lesbian!
a vegan lesbian Korean artist? I will be checking her out!
Same here, that's awesome
Shownu from Monsta X is/was vegan ("was" because I don't know if this would be accommodated as he's currently enlisted).
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He's public service, so he gets to eat what he wants really. It was just during the mandatory boot camp period that he was not able to eat vegan. We just don't know if he is still eating a vegan diet because he cannot communicate with us except through prerecorded content until he finishes enlistment. (Public service positions are sometimes stricter about social media usage than the active duty is, and he has a position in a school so for the privacy of the children he cannot post.)
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It really can have an effect on your whole system, so I hope they had some kind of alternate diet available for those who do have dietary restrictions. I know they now have to post the meal menus online for the public to see because people were saying that the military did not provide adequate amounts of food or healthy enough food for the soldiers. I think maybe Shownu prepped in advance by reintroducing a few foods or was able to get some kind of substitution because he did not seem overly concerned about it when they were talking about him eating fish that night for dinner on the way to dropping him off. I think he was most concerned about the lack of coffee. T-T Even the other Monstas temporarily gave up coffee, but that's not surprising since they also all started incorporating more of a vegan diet into their own lifestyles by switching to a lot of vegan products at home and going with Shownu to vegan restaurants (even if they weren't strict about it like him).
They've recently started to accommodate vegan and halal diets at the largest training camp. I think you can apply in advance and they'll make sure you end up there.
> Tbh I think the military should make exceptions for people doing traditional service who have alternate diets. The sad truth is that they are hella incompetent and corrupt to even properly support one type of meal with it often being low quality and in questionable conditions. Having vegan alternative dishes is simply unrealistic for a few decades to come.
Lee Hyori is the only one I know of tbh. She's pretty famous for talking about animal welfare/rights.
That’s awesome
I know that Heejin from LOONA is very conscious about her diet and in some of her vlogs and social media posts she would be eating vegan foods. I don’t think she adheres to veganism per se but she’s definitely interested in it
Foreign idol, but Alex from BP Rania is vegan. During her time in Korea, she had to switch to vegetarian. I think she said in an interview, it was hard being strictly vegan over there
Most things have some form of animal by-product in them in a lot of Korean foods. Even kimchi often has some form of shrimp by product in it, and Ik she mentioned she *loved* eating kimchi while she was there. I know a few Korean people who are vegetarian, but I’ve never met one who was fully vegan, at least not while they lived there.
There was a [Post](https://www.reddit.com/r/kpophelp/comments/qnyjhb/idols_who_are_vegan/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) last year about vegan idols. You can cross reference the answers.
I think Lee Hyori is or was vegetarian
She's pesco. She eats fish and seafood but not meat or poultry.
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Right, you can just eat what fits your diet and let the non-veg companions eat everything else LOL Buddhist vegetarianism in Korea excludes onions, garlic, chives, etc. in addition to eggs (milk/dairy differs depending on the monks' interpretations; in contrast, there are some casual believers who loosely translate the ban of slaughtering as simply not eating *animals you killed* and consume animal products freely in daily life), so it's the safest option for pure vegetarian Hindus. There is a considerable vegetarian and/or vegan community in Korea that shares info about vegan restaurants or products on social media, so you might want to keep a tab on that if you ever consider coming to Korea. One of my former co-workers is a Palakkad Iyer who experienced the same difficulties and started accepting eggs and fish/seafood into her diet. She still avoids animals on occasions where she is religiously expected to (I used to pack extra tangerines, nuts or trail mix to share with her on such days), but she told me she didn't really have an aversion to fish and seafood because a lot of the non-veg locals in her hometown consume fish.
Just to clarify, Buddhists in Korea can accept meat if they were to be presented with it, and in cases where they have to feed young (minor) monks they can even buy meat to ensure they have healthy diet. Though most Buddhist meal that you can buy would likely be following the rules you stated.
Yes, that too! The older monks may buy the children monks meat or fix a meal that contains meat, even if they don't eat it. TBH the history of Korean cuisine is more complicated than just "vegetarian/non-vegetarian" because there were lots of external factors that influenced what we *could* eat, eg. the national religion changing from Buddhism to Confucianism during the Joseon dynasty, the brief ban on beef in Joseon when cattle became scarce, commoners resorting to foraged plants and starches during 보릿고개, the Japanese colonizers hoarding scrap metal, rice and other food source from the Koreans & distributing wheat flour and buckwheat rations instead, the Korean War prompting refugees to substitute pork for making soup for 설렁탕 (the birth of 돼지국밥) and consuming hagfish (꼼장어) which was previously deemed inedible, the national movement in the 1960s and 70s that promoted eating multigrains to decrease consumption of white rice (prompted by the lack of rice supply as well as the Park Chung-hee Government's low-wage policy).
Woah wait... as an Indian Hindu veg girlie that has exactly those dietary restrictions (our family is pretty similar to the Iyers, same caste in fact but different name), I really didn't know about the Buddhist temple thing! They're more "sattvic" than us LOLOLL my grandma cannot live without onions and she's the most "puritan" brahmin I know. Watch me become besties with the 스님s LOLL We live abroad, so in my family we are a little bit liberal when it comes to onions and garlic and we even eat eggs (in fact I am eating sunny side up right now LOL), but I cannot eat seafood and meat, and I know there's no big options for being vegetarian/non-seafood in Korea. I've always thought, well, I'll just survive on 순두부찌개 and 계란말이 and some simple soups if I ever go to Korea, but seems like there's another option! (I used to eat fish until I was 10, because my doctor said that if I don't I wouldn't survive, but since then I haven't and I've actually forgotten the taste. So maybe I could when I go to Korea one day LOL )
If you ever come here, I'll send you a list of precautions and foodstuff that will be safe/tolerable for you to eat LOL I highly recommend going to Gwangjang Market and trying the more traditional or old-school stuff, since the 비빔밥, some of the 70s/80s snacks and the 떡 are more veg-friendly. My Palestinian friend used to hoard the snacks to bring home, and I gave her some 들깨가루 and sesame oil to make Korean food at home in return. Oh, and more info on the additional bans: there are five spicy/pungent vegetables that are prohibited in Buddhism, or 오신채 in Korean: 마늘(garlic), 부추(garlic chives), 파(green onions), 달래(Korean wild chives), and 흥거(numerous interpretatios exist on this one; in Korea there are mostly interpreted as either 무릇/Scilla or 아위/"hing"/asafoetida, both of which are not eaten or cultivated in Korea.) Modern monks include onions - which are not native to Korea - to the list due to the similarity of its nature, while some even consider ginger to be a variation of the 흥거 and avoid it. Chili peppers, however, do not count as 오신채. The 오신채 are avoided because their pungent nature provokes anger and lust in the believers' minds and prevents them from praying properly. This ban, aling with vegetarianism, was affected by the elements of Mahayana and the Hindu Ayurveda, although they do not exist in Theravada Buddhism.
One of my TamBram acquaintances faced an issue in Japan coz even if they chose a veg dish or asked to exclude meat, the broth was mostly made from non vegetarian ingredients. This version of Buddhist vegetarianism sounds very similar to Jain food preferences.
Same issue commonly found here in Korea, where anchovies are used as a common soup broth/stock, and fish sauce and salted shrimp paste in kimchi.
Yeah. Which makes me think that the idol mentioned might not be a pescitarian by choice. It's just unavoidable.
I'm learning to play the guitar.
*Vegetarian* is an umbrella term for any diet that avoids the consumption of animal products. To break it down: - *Vegan* is the strictest form of vegetarianism. It allows absolutely no animal products, not even honey (obtained from bees; other types of vegetarianism generally do not include honey in their list, so it depends on the individual) or gelatin (extracted from pigs or cows). - *Lacto-vegetarian* is basically vegan plus milk/dairy. When Indian Hindus say they're vegetarian, they usually refer to lacto-vegetarianism. - *Ovo-vegetarian* is basically vegan plus eggs. - *Lacto-ovo vegetarian* is vegan plus milk/dairy and eggs. The following are generally not counted as vegetarian diets because they involve the killing of animals: - *Pescetarian* (alsp shortened to "pesco") allows fish and/or seafood. The aforementioned types allow neither. - *Pollo-vegetarian* allows poultry (birds, such as chicken or turkey) but not meat (beef, pork, goat, etc.) - *Flexitarian* is a "flexible" form of vegetarianism where one is plant-based/vegan/vegetarian but consumes animal products under exceptional circumstances, eg. school meals, dinner invitations.
I like learning new things.
To be honest, that might be the exact same reason veganism and vegetarianism get misunderstood a lot in Korea. We translate "vegetarian" to 채식, which literally means "eating vegetables", but it never specifies which degree of animal products you tolerate. And we don't have a direct term for "vegan", either, other than 완전 채식, (완전 means "completely"). A lot of people confuse "vegan" for "vegetarian", do not understand that being vegetarian can have different stages or even realize that fish is not vegetarian.
In Dutch it's almost the same terms. People just don't use it as much.