Tuesday, December 18, 2007

"Strictly" vegetarian

I tried the hor fan at Bukit Merah Central the other day, it was quite good and they gave me a large portion. On another occassion, I tried the Vegetarian prawn mee at Kopitiam at Tiong Bahru Plaza. I was shock when I tasted the "vegetarian" prawn, it taste a little fishy. Vegetarian or not, it's hard to tell, my guess is it probably isn't. There are some unethical vegetarian-food companies which add traces of meat stuff into "vegetarian" mock meats. One vegetarian friend told me he avoided mock meat because of this reason. Do be careful when you are eating out especially when it comes to "vegetarian" seafood.

Yesterday, some sellers of propolis and honey eagerly approached me and my collegues to purchase some of their products. My collegues manage to fend them off, but I didn't. They did their sales talk while I tried to come up with excuses not to try or buy their products, but they didn't give up. Eventually I told them I am a strict vegetarian and I don't take animal products. The man didn't understand and told me propolis comes from plants and the bees gather them. So I told him I am not supportive of the usual beekeeping practices. They let me go :) but I wonder what goes on in their minds about the freak they just talked to.

Note: In Singapore, the term "vegan" isn't widely used. Many places serving chinese food will tend to take "strict vegetarian" as someone who don't eat meat, fish, eggs, and the five pungent roots. Dairy is considered part of a strict vegetarian diet.

3 comments:

Jari (travelling-vegan) said...

Ah, that's what I keep fearing, that there may be animal things in the mock meats! I guess seaweed does give things a "fishy" taste, but still, when those things are so realistic it's a bit bothersome at times. Especially as in China the ingredients are listed in an odd way, they don't detail everything but just say something like "vegetarian spices" in the end. Sometimes I think it'd be nicer to just stick to beans. I just found some pretty great soya cheese here in Finland though, I'll detail later...

dreamy said...

Yea I agree 100%! My dad brought some China tou gan with him back, and some of them are labelled "vegetarian" and on the ingredients list it states "chicken essence". My dad say it is vegetarian chicken essence. I doubt it is. Last time I went China and was served vegetarian food in a non-veg restaurant. The tomato soup tasted like meat broth :@ I think they just take the meat or bones out of the soup and serve us :(

a veg*n @ Blog*Spot said...

Same thing that my boy encountered in Beijing in May/June. He was given a meat dish and he didn't know until his teacher told him that.

And sometimes, there are all mixed up (vegetarian and non-vegetarian dumpling), so he didn't eat any.

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