I’m grateful for my daily habit of enjoying a hearty miso soup each morning. It contains 20-30 ingredients, including sun-dried vegetables and mushrooms. Honestly, I take pride in eating a wider variety of vegetables each morning than most self-identified Western vegans/vegetarians.
It’s ironic to me that many Western vegans, who adopt strict eating rules in the name of compassion or sustainability, often show little awareness—or respect—for cultures that have been eating plant-forward diets for centuries. While they complain that “Japan has so few vegan options,” they overlook the fact that traditional Japanese cuisine is already rich in vegetables, fermented foods, and seasonal eating—often with much more variety than the oatmeal-and-pancake routines I see daily in my share house.
They react with shock at even a trace of fish-based broth, but refuse ingredients like konnyaku because it’s “too slimy.” At the same time, they give animal rights speeches in Japanese without acknowledging that their own societies promoted the very meat-heavy food systems they now reject.
The deeper irony? In many Asian cultures, people don’t need to call themselves vegan to eat more plants—because it’s simply built into our diets. We eat meat, yes, but we also consume an incredible range of vegetables, seaweeds, and fermented ingredients without needing a label or a moral pedestal.
Which leads me to wonder: is this extreme dietary identity really about ethics—or is it also about a search for belonging in a world they’ve become disconnected from?
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