Vegan Diet Guy

Tastes great when you're 5 miles high.

Airline meals were the butt of many jokes until they were largely eliminated from domestic flights. Now, all you hear is how much people miss them! However, international passengers can still look forward to airline meals, if only to break up the monotony of long-haul flights (or deride in their blogs).

Most airlines offer a wide variety of “special meals,””  including various kinds of vegetarian ones, such as Asian vegetarian, and lacto-ovo vegetarian, in addition to vegan.

Not long ago I wrote about a suprisingly good vegan meal served up by Philippine Airways. After writing PAL to commend them, PAL’s customer service quickly provided me with photos of their lunch as well as a description of the dish. (more…)

Fast Tube by Casper

I’m embarassed to admit that it took a non-vegan late-night talk show host, Craig Ferguson, to remind me of World Vegan Day this year. Albeit, Ferguson referred to it as “National Vegan Day” instead of its proper designation. In reality, I suspect Vegan Day is largely unknown and unobserved outside the US and UK.

Last year, my partner and I promoted World Vegan Day by giving away vegan baked goods in our downtown Tokyo neighborhood, but this year I’m visiting family on the US east coast, and staying up late due to lingering jet-lag.

Just prior to Ferguson’s show, I saw Janet Jackson discussing her (“on and off”) vegan diet with Jay Leno, and recommending her two favorite vegan restaurants, Vegan Glory in Los Angeles, and Red Bamboo in NYC. Seeing how Jay’s girth has increased, following Janet’s advice would probably do him a world of good. (more…)

Could your morning cappucino or latte fix possibly be keeping you from giving up dairy products and progressing toward a healthier diet and lifestyle?

For many people, switching to a non-dairy milk in their coffee takes more than a little getting used to. It doesn’t help that the big chain coffee shops charge extra for soymilk, but eliminating dairy milk from your espresso drinks may be just what you need to build momentum for becoming vegan. (more…)

While some visitors to this site come searching for first-hand vegan diet advice and easy and delicious vegan recipes, others wind up here simply curious about how vegans can live without consuming any animal products, including dairy or eggs.

A vegan diet is widely described as a “strict vegetarian diet”, and apparently even vegetarians see it as too difficult to follow. On the other hand, many long-term vegans cannot identify with the challenges of those trying to go vegan.

All the hyperbole over a vegan diet can be overwhelming to someone just considering beginning one. To ease the journey, I recommend the term “plant-based diet”–focusing on the vast number and variety of plant foods available, instead of what you perceive you’ll be giving up.

When I first read “The China Study” and decided I was ready to take author Colin Campbell’s One-Month Challenge (“You’ve eaten cheeseburgers your whole life; a month without them won’t kill you.”), I wondered why the publisher didn’t commission a China Study diet plan and recipe book to aid the transition to a plant-based diet.

Well, Rip Esselstyn’s “The Engine 2 Diet” is about as close as you can come. (more…)

Before becoming vegan, parmigiana “you name it” was one of my favorite dishes. Who could resist anything coated in oil, two or three kinds of cheese, and tomato sauce?

So when I spied a pack of decent sized “American (globe) eggplant” the other day (vs. the smaller and more commonly available Japanese variety-this is Japan, go figure!), I knew it was time to try out the low-fat version of eggplant parmesan I had seen on FatFreeVegan.com.

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Being vegan in Tokyo can often make one feel isolated in the world’s most populous city, but last weekend my partner and I counted ourselves a very lucky minority to meet acclaimed vegan chef and author of the “The Conscious Cook” cookbook, Tal Ronnen.

While Japan is known for originating the predominantly vegetarian macrobiotic diet, and “macrobi” restaurants are ubiquitous here, veganism is extremely rare in Japan. As a result, our vegan cooking school and vegan recipe website came up near the top of the web search Chef Tal did before his recent visit to Tokyo.

We were aware Tal had cooked for Oprah Winfrey’s 21-day vegan cleanse and catered Ellen DeGeneres and Portia De Rossi’s wedding, but not of his fondness for Japan, inherited from his Australian father who had lived in Japan 3 years. Tal said Japanese food was his favorite, and asked our recommendation for Shojin Ryoori (traditional Buddhist temple food). (more…)

A lot of omnivores, and even many vegetarians, think vegan cooking is hard, but in reality, it’s no more difficult than non-vegan cooking. Getting into the mindset where you are ready for a plants-based, vegan diet is the most challenging. If you’ve landed on this page, you are obviously headed in the right direction.

Spaghetti alla Puttanesca is one of those old standby recipes that I hadn’t touched since becoming vegan, that is–until my sister served a delectable anchovy-less rendition for New Year’s dinner. And, like so many other dishes I couldn’t fathom eating again (due to the elimination of a supposedly “core ingredient”), I am now rediscovering it. (more…)

Sushi was one of the hardest foods to give up after I resolved to adopt a vegan diet. After all, my passion for sushi was one of the things that brought me to live in Japan in the first place. And while Japan is infamous for exclusive sushi shops that charge $500 per person, even low-end sushi (such as kaiten, or “conveyor belt” style) is fresh and inexpensive compared to other countries, making it hard to resist.

For some time after I had bid sayonara to meat, eggs and dairy, I continued the Japanese institution of going out for sushi with friends and family. At first, I ate varieties consisting of mostly vegetables such as natto (fermented soybeans) and green onions, cucumber, takuon (pickled radish), kampyo (dried gourd), as well as inarizushi (fried bean curd filled with sushi rice and black sesame seeds). (more…)

Veganomicon, simply the best cookbook to transform you from meat-eating to a 100% plant diet, has inspired my cooking for over 3 years. Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero’s earlier  books, “Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World” and “Vegan With A Vengeance” have amassed devoted followers, too, and I always wondered if I wasn’t missing out.

Actually, I never understood the hoopla over Vegan Cupcakes, because I gave up consuming animal products primarily for improving my health, and most vegan confectionaries–while better ethically and environmentally–are not necessarily healthier than non-vegan ones.

Generally speaking, vegan versions of non-vegan recipes merely substitute animal fat (butter, eggs) with equal amounts of plant-derived fat (oil) and vegan sweeteners for sugar. Many people don’t realize that  some vegan dishes are even less healthy than the original because they are prepared with excess oil (often fried) and salt, artificial coloring and flavor enhancers.

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