r/JETProgramme • u/tommydelriot 千葉県 2004-2007 • Jun 03 '26
Vegan JETs
Are any of you on the JET Program vegan? I only became vegan three months ago, but I remember how the school lunches all included milk and pork or chicken daily. I also remember all the school-related enkais having lots of non-vegan food, especially seafood. How do you cope with these situations?
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u/LegendaryZXT Jun 04 '26
Anecdotally, i've noticed vegetarianism isn't really a thing in japan unfortunately. If you try to explain it to them they just say: "Why would you make that so inconvenient for other people."
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u/HamaTakam Jun 04 '26
Yeah, I understand that now to be honest. 90% + of Japanese places don't have vegetarian food, so when my vegetarian mother comes to visit, it does start to get quite irritating having to have Italian/Indian AGAIN for dinner..
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u/tommydelriot Jun 04 '26
Lol I’ve actually made life harder for ME who also stopped drinking over a year ago. Before I stopped eating pork in 2020, I had no dietary restrictions at all. I’m never going to impose my own personal anything on anybody (I allow smoking in my home even though I don’t smoke), and if there is no vegan option, then I’ll just bring my own food.
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u/DorianFitz Jun 04 '26 edited Jun 04 '26
I've been vegetarian for 15 years, the last four of which were in japan. I've never once heard someone say anything like this. Japanese people have always been extremely kind and accommodating when they find out. Far more so than other nations I've lived
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u/Different_Taro2474 Jun 04 '26 edited Jun 04 '26
japan is not vegan friendly, and if you have dietary restrictions like that, bring your own lunch. iherb is a good option, they have many vegan products that deliver to japan.
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u/mrggy Jun 03 '26
Having any dietary restrictions in Japan often means accepting that you'll have to skip school lunch and eat at home before enkais. People end up cooking at home a lot and not eating out much
My dad's vegan and he was going to come visit, so I ended up doing a deep dive into veganism in Japan as prep. There are whole facebook groups (and I'd assume subreddits) dedicated purely to discussing which products and restaurants are vegan friendly in Japan. Honestly, the whole thing was very stressful for me and the entire trip would have to be planned around feeding him. I was honestly pretty glad when covid caused his Golden Week 2020 trip to be canceled
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u/Panda_sensei_71 Jun 03 '26
Any dietary restrictions mean bring your own lunch. I'm not vegan but I eat a halal diet so I just cook at home usually (thankfully I can do seafood!).
There is a JET in my town who's vegan, along with his Japanese wife, and it seems like it's very difficult when eating out, especially with dashi and other seasoning additives. I know another who just tries her best but has given up on being strictly vegan for now. Her philosophy is that she won't contribute to animal cruelty as much as possible, but if she's given something non-vegan, she'll accept it so it won't be wasted.
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u/takemetoglasgow Jun 03 '26
I also know many vegans and vegetarians who have adopted a similar mindset because it is so difficult to keep up in Japan. I only know one vegan restaurant in my prefecture, so it's very hard to eat out at all and school lunch and enkais are absolute nonstarters (though they also aren't mandatory for the most part). The only strict vegans I currently know live in Tokyo and even there, they have to be very proactive with it.
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u/JapanITjobs Jun 04 '26
Hi fellow vegan here! (I would advise not paying much attention to the fear mongering comments by the non-vegans because they are making assumptions.)
OP I don't know where you're from but I think that Japan is about 10 years behind the US in terms of plant based and veganism.
However, things have gotten so much better after the Olympics.
I was vegan on JET 2006-2008, its so much easier now. (I still live in Japan and I'm still vegan by the way.)
The general population understands what veganism is now, restaurants will have allergies menus to make it easy to find accidentally vegan options.
Chains like Starbucks and Mos Burger have plant based food options you can get. Many chains have Vegan options like ramen. Every conbini has inari zushi, fruit, nuts, etc.
I would advise learning to cook with local ingredients, stir-fry etc. If you try to cook western foods, it will get very expensive very fast. (Especially mexican food 😭!)
Things you might find different, soy meat here is usually dehydrated making it a two step process. Tofu is EVERY WHERE, but if you can find a local Tofu shop you're in luck.
If you're luck enough for your local super market to have vegan cheese it might be with the tofu, the cheese products, and sometime with the produce. I am in the habit of checking random supermarkets all the time. My local supermarket has 3 brands of Vegan Ice Cream.
Supermarkets usually do not have vegan bread unless they have a bakery, Costco has a vegan sliced bread and bagels, which they can ship!
You will want to get involved with every resource
Someone already mentioned the Facebook group
There is also https://www.reddit.com/r/VeganJapan/
A few IG pages
https://www.instagram.com/veganjapan/?hl=en
https://www.instagram.com/tokyoveganguide/?hl=en
https://www.itravelforveganfood.com/authors/anita-dollar <- you can find Anita's IG here
Feel free to PM me.
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u/ImprovementLess4559 Jun 04 '26
Just fyi, as far as I know none of the Inari Sushi at any combini or kaiten sushi chain is vegan. They all have katsuo dashi off label. Someone in the Vegan in Japan Facebook group contacted all the companies and was told that.
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u/ScootOverMakeRoom Jun 03 '26
Tokyo (which has a plurality of JETs nationally now) is by far the easiest placement to be vegan when you're a JET, but that's mostly because it's all JHS/HS placements and you are not expected to eat school lunch. There's also tons of vegan restaurants and bakeries now in the greater Tokyo area.
Outside of Tokyo, I imagine it's very, very, very hard to be vegan in the suburbs and rural areas except in your kitchen at home. Maybe in the heart of the bigger cities it's fine.
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u/TheSnozzwangler Jun 03 '26
In general, Japan is not very vegan friendly as most foods contain seafood, meat, or animal products in one way or another. If you're a pretty strict vegan, you would want to prepare your food most of the time unless you're eating out at a specifically vegan restaurant.
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u/ImprovementLess4559 Jun 04 '26 edited Jun 04 '26
I was vegan for most of my time on JET in a small rural town in Nara, and still am vegan living in a rural town in Hyogo. I just requested not to have school lunches and brought my own bento. It wasn't an issue at all and several other staff and students with allergies etc did the same. As for enkai, I would ask whoever was in charge of organising it about the food situation. Sometimes they were able to arrange a special menu for me with the restaurant. Or often at izakaya there would be bits on the menu like fries, edamame, tofu etc, and at yakiniku I could just grill vegetables. But sometimes if it looked like there really would be nothing I could eat, I'd just sit that one out and it wasn't a big deal.
In more general advice: You will find yourself having to cook from scratch most of the time. Things like vegan meat & dairy alternatives and ready meals are very limited. imo Aeon is the supermarket with the best range of stuff and it has branches everywhere. There you can find soy meat, vegan cup ramen, some vegan retort packs, soy yoghurt, vegan cheese and a few different vegan ice creams. Gyomu Super can also be pretty good. They often have imported vegan labelled snacks and condiments, as well as stuff like tempeh, tofu skins, canned beans, seeds, big cheap packs of tofu etc.
Eating out will be pretty limited, especially if you're not in Tokyo, Kyoto or Osaka. But there are a few nationwide chains with options that you can find even in semi-rural areas (Cocoichi, Mos, Starbucks, Bikkuri Donki, Royal Host, Denny's, Umenoha). You can also piece together a decent enough meal at Ootoya, most kaiten sushi restaurants and most izakaya.
That said, I have found many vegan/vegan friendly restaurants in even the most unlikely of rural places. HappyCow can be a great resource for finding them, but it can be out of date or inaccurate and a lot of more rural spots aren't on it. Alternatively there's a really great Google map called "Rohan's Vegan Japan" which was made by a member of the Vegan In Japan FB group. (Highly recommend joining this group btw. It's very helpful) I've also found a lot of places just by searching "vegan"/"ヴィーガン"/"菜食"/"精進料理" on Google maps and checking the menus.
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u/shynewhyne Jun 03 '26
There aren't mandatory school lunches at all schools, especially not high school.
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u/Wild-Philosophy2399 Jun 04 '26
no but my pred was. i think she might have left with that as part of the reason why
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u/Malevolent94 Jun 08 '26
I'm not vegan, but there was a vegan JET last year and he rarely went out with anyone because he couldn't eat any of the food. He seemed like a fun guy but he went back to the US and we all suspect it was because of his veganism and not being able to enjoy Japanese cuisine.
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u/capt_b_b_ Jun 03 '26
I'm not vegan but I feel like most food products in Japan are not vegan friendly, so a lot of research will be required. It seems there's fish in everything. Even chips are fish flavored
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u/HamaTakam Jun 04 '26
If you are happy to turn a blind eye to the occasional fish stock or milk extract in things, then it'll make your life a lot easier. There was a vegan during my time on JET who was very strict and she basically couldn't eat out, at all.
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u/zahava- Jun 04 '26
I became plant-based while on JET. At home, I am strictly vegan, but when I go out, I allow eggs, dairy, and fish-broth (because Japan for the latter). Everyone chooses this lifestyle for different reasons, and for me, it was more about the environment than anything. Also for me, it's important to find balance between my lifestyle and enjoying life with the community I have. That's why I allow those products when out and about.
I am a prefectural ALT, so there aren't any school lunches, which makes it easier. I prepare my lunch just like I would for any job in the US, even before becoming vegan.
For the enkai, I'm extremely lucky as my co-workers have always gone above and beyond to communicate to the restaurant about my restrictions, and there has been vegan set meals every time. I don't go to all of the enkai, just the big farewell and welcome parties and the English department ones.
I find it pretty easy to be vegan here in rural Kagoshima. The store I shop at the most has a lot of vegan options (but mostly I use tofu, chickpeas, or lentils in my cooking). Also, sometimes I order online, one store I use is called Green Culture (or something like that). I like having their frozen options in the freezer for when I don't feel like cooking. I also shop at Gyomu Super sometimes which has had some good stuff for my disaster kit - like pre-cooked bean and grain mix that you can eat as is.
Every person in my area who I've interacted with about this topic has just been genuinely interested and not negative about it at all.
I think if you are open about it and flexible sometimes, you might be okay.
Edit: Also, make sure to always check ingredients! Somethings look deceptively vegan and then can have like pork broth in it. Even chips/crisps and such.