Hi everyone!

Before I traveled to Taiwan, I was very worried about what I would eat there. I tried to do as much research as I could, finding out what I could eat as a vegan. After I spent a couple of days in Taiwan, I realized that eating as a vegan was not too difficult as there are actually quite a lot of people eating a vegetarian/vegan diet due to religion.

Today I'll be going over veganism in Taiwan and the foods I ate while I stayed there.

Eating vegetarian in Mandarin Chinese is called 素 (pronounced sù). Besides pastries and desserts, Taiwanese cooking doesn't contain a lot of dairy. As for eggs, most of the time, I was asked if I could eat eggs or I just told the waiter that I couldn't eat eggs.

Some things to keep in mind:

• some restaurants use animal fat or boil broth from animal bones (you should tell the staff you are vegan if you are planning to order something fried or with soup)
• some restaurants will not consider their dishes vegetarian/vegan because the pots/pans/grills have touched meat in the past
• vegetarianism/veganism is often associated with Buddhist cuisine which considers strong smelling plants such as onion, scallion, and leek not 素

抓餅 scallion pancake

For breakfast I often ate this pancake with scallion (抓餅 // zhuā bǐng). Sometimes it could be cooked with egg or other non vegan ingredients so make sure you specify what you want.

便當 Taiwanese bento (contains mushroom, tofu, rice, veggies, noodles)

We were often traveling using high speed railways, so it was convenient to buy these Taiwanese lunch boxes (便當 // biàn dang) to eat on the train. At the train stations I was at, they all had vegan options.

便當 (contains fried mushroom, veggies, rice)

a type of seaweed that only blooms on rainy days

(contains tofu, mushroom, veggies, rice)

The dish above is similar to the lunch box, with the various different veggies and side of rice.

noodles with peanut sauce

veggies + stinky tofu

There are a lot of street foods in Taiwan that are vegan; personally, my favorite is fried stinky tofu. Usually the stinky tofu is deep fried in vegetable oils.


At the night markets there are lots of stands selling fruits like the one above (not quite sure what it is). Fruit is can be quite expensive in Taiwan, depending on the fruit.

炒麵 fried noodles with veggies

Hi everyone,

Today I was talking with a friend and mentioned that we should get together and watch a documentary about veganism. However, this person was opposed to the idea, as it would "ruin" the experience of eating meat. 

In times like these its hard for me to not feel upset. I never want to come off as a pushy vegan, but I know in the past I've offended some people by dissing meat. Many people complain about vegans acting superior or rude but I don't think they've ever considered why some act this way. Personally, I don't think I'm better than anyone; I used to love meat. But after being educated and learning about the cruelty involved, it's hard for me to stay quiet on the topic.

I don't know many other vegans or even vegetarians. None of my close friends or family are vegan so there are times when I feel very isolated. I often get teased by others which often times makes can make me very angry. I'm still working on finding peace with living in a non-vegan world as a vegan, but there are days when I just feel extremely frustrated (such as today).

I plan on making a blog post in the future about why I'm vegan because it's a question that I get very often. I'm sure many people would go vegan if they were aware of the animal cruelty involved. And I'm sure even more people would go vegan if they knew about the health issues involved with meat.

So those are some thoughts that I had today. I hope you are all having a great day. If you have a similar experience please let me know.

Thank you for reading.

Hi everyone,

I haven't been updating my blog as much as I'd like, mainly because I've been lazy and procrastinating with my other work. But today, I thought I would finally make a blog post about some changes I've made to my life as well as some random tidbits.

For I believe a couple weeks now, I have been eating a vegan diet. Prior to this, I was eating a pescatarian diet for about a month. I was influenced by some great vegan YouTubers (Freelee the Banana Girl and Stella Rae) and making the change has been great. These past few days I've been limiting my fat intake. For the last couple of months, my skin has been absolutely terrible. I've had acne for many years now, but my skin was never as bad as it has been. I changed up my skincare and makeup products multiple times, but nothing was improving my skin. While doing research, I came across this video by Nina and Randa who are also vegan YouTubers. This led me to Dr. McDougall's diet advice for acne. Although I had been eating vegan and cut out all dairy, I was eating copious amounts of fats. I pretty much had some kind of oil in all of my meals. Because so much of my food contains oil, it is hard for me to completely eradicate all oil from my diet. So now I only have one meal a day that consisted of any fat. Typically, I usually have breakfast, lunch, an afternoon snack, and dinner. I only have fat in one of these meals. So I've been eating a lot more fruits, and I have noticed my skin getting better!

I broke my rule a few days ago when I ate two meals, one of which was extremely oily. However, making this change hasn't been too difficult for me. I might make some "What I Eat in a Day" posts for those who want some ideas for vegan food.

One thing I've been worried about is a trip that I'm making this summer to Taiwan and China. All of my family members who live there eat meat, so I'm a bit concerned that I won't be able to maintain my diet there with ease. We will also be eating out a lot, so I won't know exactly what is being used to cook my food. I've heard that there a lot of vegetarian restaurants in Taiwan, so hopefully I'll run into some. I'll also bring as many dates as I can to snack on in case there's nothing for me to eat.

After a few more weeks, I'll be sure to post an update on how my skin is doing. I've only been limiting my fat intake for a few days, so the results haven't been drastic. However, I have noticed my skin is definitely not getting as many new breakouts as it was before.

The next month is going to get really busy for me, as the end of the school year approaches. I've been a little stressed out these past few weeks because of dealing with school work, but I'm trying to improve my stress management skills. I think I'll make another blog post on this topic with links to interesting videos.

I've also been really obsessed with BTS! They're comeback, which I'm so excited for, is next month. They have some really nice songs with meaningful lyrics. I'm not Korean nor do I speak Korean so I can't understand what their saying, so English subtitles are the best. I'm also really excited for Ariana Grande's new album. I'm loving her song Be Alright right now.

That is everything that I'd like to talk about for this blog post. Thank you for reading!