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[Vegemite]

I'm an ex-semi-vegetarian Mimi, when I made the decision to come to China I decided to start eating meat again. I hadn't eaten meat for nearly twenty years. The only animal product I really ate back home was seafood - never touched dairy or eggs.

And I'm so glad I made the decision to change my eating habits, there's an awful lot of animal-based dishes up here. I live in the far north-west and up here vegetables aren't very popular. When daughter and I first arrived, after a month of wining and dining we were crying for a plate of vegies - someone finally listened to us and ordered us something with 'lots' of vegetables, it was gobarou (spelling?). Basically chunks of beef deep-fried in rice flour with slivers of carrots and garlic and onions tossed through it, for my Mongolian friends that was a vegetable dish.

And like others have pointed out, the same cooking utensils and oil are used for food preparation. The broths are often meat based and even the tofu will often have egg through it.

I suppose it depends a lot on where you are going to in China as to how easy or difficult it will be. I knew that coming up here meant we'd be expected to eat a lot of meat - I just had no idea how much of it there was going to be! And that we were expected to eat every part of an animal too. Daughter likes to point out though, that up here nearly all of the animal is utilised, when the animal dies all of it is used for some purpose...there is minimal wastage.

[Raoul F. Duke]

It took almost two years of constant hoovering while they cook to take me seriously that I don't want them in my dishes.

Constant hoover ing?
Now, that's dedication! 
Must be some happy chefs in your town...

You'll drive yourself nuts (and miss some good times) if you're too picayune about food here. The rule in China is: if it tastes good, shut up and eat it and don't ask a lot of silly questions. At least that's the best one I've found so far.

[Mimi]

I won't make a big fuss if I happen to consume animal products here and there.  I know I'll have to make quite a few changes. But, especially if it is dairy, it will make me sick.  I'm also severely allergic to shellfish, which is something I am worried about.  I guess I thought it wouldn't be as big of a big deal, as I don't eat out much here and when I do, I will only order a green salad or something.  But, now that I am realizing how much food (and seemingly pretty unhealthy food) is now a part of modern Chinese life, I'm going to have to make some decisions.

Lotus - "pecking order" is now a broad social term, but originated to describe the hierarchy within a group of chickens, kept in check by the more dominant chickens pecking the less dominant chickens.  This natural and instinctive system is shot to sh*t when new chickens are constantly being added and there isn't enough space for the group, thus resulting in a really obscene number of chickens being pecked to death for no reason. I don't like eggs enough to support that kind of brutality, so I just avoid them.

[Lotus Eater]

I'm going to have to make some decisions.

Lotus - "pecking order" is now a broad social term, but originated to describe the hierarchy within a group of chickens, kept in check by the more dominant chickens pecking the less dominant chickens.  I don't like eggs enough to support that kind of brutality, so I just avoid them.

Dairy you can possibly avoid - not much cheese here, tea is without milk, butter you have to buy specially, yoghurt and milk aren't added to much.  The 'morning' milk is often soy milk anyway.  Seafood could be a little harder - especially in the condiments.  But away from the coast you generally have to order seafood specially.  Fried rice will often have scrambled egg and what we Aussies call shrimp (tiny wee little prawns.

But again - if you are severely allergic - does it means pots and pans that have been 'contaminated'?  Because they will be. 

Natural pecking order I understand.   I was joking and I am a farm girl!  But they do have weirdly labelled eggs here.

Back in Oz the egg layers were kept in cages so they didn't have too much chance to peck each other to death.  The eggs were laid and rolled down the cage into a collection tray.  When I lived on a chicken farm we had up to 60,000 chickens at one time - bred for the table, not laying.  They had their own pecking order - any chicken different was attacked - colour, injured etc.  My sister used to run the 'hospital' and rescue them.  No new chicks were added - each group came in and left as a cohort, but even so they did create a pecking order.  The animal kingdom is not always cute.

[babala]

Mimi,
     Just a note, I saw when you said that you would just order a green salad....ummm they don't have them here. If you do order a salad here, it tends to be apples and mayo

[decurso]

Yeah...my wife made a salad here once and the neighbours treated it like some kind of strange creature from another planet.Eating lettuce cold?Unheard of.One person actually asked for the recipie which I found pretty amusing.You can make salads at home but eating cold lettuce in public could be seen as a sign of mental illness and may result in you being reported to the authorities.

 The good news is that if dairy products are your biggest concern you're pretty safe.You actually have to go out of your way to find dairy products here.The Chinese seem to be lactose intolerant.

 I am pretty lucky in that there is almost nothing I won't try.I've seen some people here have a pretty bad time due to their restrictive eating habbits.

[Raoul F. Duke]

I don't know where the impression that the Chinese are lactose-intolerant keeps coming from!

As far as I can see the Chinese consume scads of dairy products...they just don't do it the same way we do.

They drink lots of milk, especially for breakfast and when they are kids. Sometimes this is soy milk, but I suspect this is more due to cost and the taste of most Chinese milk (ugh!) rather than lactose intolerance. Look around...veritable oceans of cow's milk are drunk here every day.

They consume vast quantities of yogurt. They devour mountains of ice cream...primarily in Summer, since as we all know too much cold food can anger the small demon dragon that lives in your spleen, unbalancing your qi and giving you diarrhea. 

They don't use a lot of butter. Not very consistent with the rest of their dietary preferences, and vegetable oils are a LOT cheaper.

They don't have much use for cheese, except on an occasional pizza. They just don't like cheese all that much.

This latter especially can make it harder to be vegetarian here...many of them rely heavily on cheese as a source of protein, and to make the veggies taste more interesting.

[Vegemite]

Dairy products are fairly easy to avoid...but again it depends on location.

In Nei Mongol soy milk is a more common baking/cooking ingredient than dairy - but 'milk tea' is a common drink, I just ask the kitchen staff to swap it for 'cha shui', water tea.

I think you should just look closely at where you want to chose to live...somewhere where there are many Buddhists could be an ideal location. I wouldn't recommend Nei Mongol for someone wanting to be completely vegetarian - too hard.

[cheekygal]

Regular dairy products actually suck by majority. I buy only certain type of milk or another one when i can't get mine. But milk tastes here so differently! I am glad I am in Beijing because it is possible to find here plain decent yogurt and all other stuff. Plenty of cheese as well.
I am allergic to MSG. My solutions after what Missi did - quit eating at the Chinese restaurants  It's not that I hate Chinese food. It's just that next day I wake up like after having a heavy night filled with tequila shots.

[Lotus Eater]

Soy milk is common for breakfast here, cows milk for night time - supposed to help you sleep better - and believe me, the Chinese truly believe in sleep!  Other wise very few milk products, though yoghurt is all it's sweetest forms is easily available - pure, or unsweetened yoghurt you have to hunt for, but it can be found by the sneaky among us!

[Raoul F. Duke]

Lucky you!

So...you pare a cucumber into whisper-thin slices. You stir them and a handful of the local spice mix into an excess of unsweetened yogurt, cover it and let it sit in the esky for a day or two.

You take a soft nang bread, or thin da bing...whatever you can get there.

You pile on some of that wonderful hot Xinjiang roast lamb (with decidedly insincere apologies to the vegetarians reading this).

You add on some thinly-sliced tomato and raw onion.

You drizzle the cucumber sauce over the whole thing.

You roll it up and have yourself a wrap/gyro/burrito/sandwich/whatever that will stop traffic. Fights will break out over them.

If you can get your hands on some felafel, you can substitute that for the lamb, keeping the dish safely vegetarian and me safely on-topic. 

[contemporarydog]

Yeah...my wife made a salad here once and the neighbours treated it like some kind of strange creature from another planet.Eating lettuce cold?Unheard of.One person actually asked for the recipie which I found pretty amusing.You can make salads at home but eating cold lettuce in public could be seen as a sign of mental illness and may result in you being reported to the authorities.

 The good news is that if dairy products are your biggest concern you're pretty safe.You actually have to go out of your way to find dairy products here.The Chinese seem to be lactose intolerant.

 I am pretty lucky in that there is almost nothing I won't try.I've seen some people here have a pretty bad time due to their restrictive eating habbits.

On the other hand, here in Dalian, they eat salads which are astonishingly close to 'real' salads, they even put vinegar on instead of the dire sweet mayo that they put on salads in wuhan...

Were at a friends house the other day, I think out of 10 dishes, only 2 had meat in, the rest were all veg.  Dalian is definitely the place for veggies in china, if one exists.

[Eagle]

Hi Mimi, I'm in ChangZhou and as Babala has pointed out, there are options here for those more into veggies than meat and dairy products.  For the missus and I, veggies are the main item on the menu.  But as most have pointed out here, veggies on the restaurant menus are often cooked using chicken soup base.  You can choose to skip certain dishes here when out with a crowd as one of our FTs who is primarily vegetarian has found out (he is returning).  And as others have pointed out, cooking for one's self is the best way to regulate diet.  Shellfish - it's about choice for the most part.  All that said, as Lotus has counselled, there will be times when invited out that you will find yourself faced with hard choices.  Letting your host/hostess know about allergies to shell fish will be a big help.  No one here invites you out with the intention of having you get seriously ill.  You will find yourself feted and dined here as though a celebrity, because to them, you are a celebrity.  Don't miss out on the experience of China because of fear of food.  You do have choices and communicating your health concerns to your FAO and new found friends will make it even easier to be eating out with others.  Good luck in China.

[NateM]

  So you need to ask yourself - why are you coming to China?

One thing to consider: if you are interested in Chinese culture but want to keep to a strict vegetarian/vegan diet, I've heard from several Vegan friends that Taiwan is the most vegetarian-friendly place in Asia. The pay is better there, too. Just a thought.

[Mr Nobody]

It is genetically impossible for a human being to be allergic to MSG. Glutamic acid is an essential amino acid. Allergies are specific immune issues. Cannot happen. The embryo would die in the womb.

The whole msg is evil was disproved a decade ago. The report was actually faked data, the scientist discredited.

You CAN be sensitive to large amounts, just like people are sensitive to large amounts of salt, which is also essential. Or vitamin C, which is not only toxic in large amounts but causes DNA damage. Other essential compounds have similar issues.

China restaurant syndrome has been shown to be not related to MSG but instead to a mould that lives on rice that is kept warm.

Lactose intolerance is higher in Asians, specifically Chinese, at about double the rate of those from Europe. It is about, from what I was told, 16-20% of people here. That varies from 'gives you gas' to 'makes you sick' sort of thing, same as the west. It is about 8-10% in the west, but populations vary a LOT. Actual illness was more like 2-4% I think, and in China, less than 10%.

Err, I forgot why I am posting this. I will go and get another drink.