Another hippie travel blog

Namaste food lovers and welcome to mother India - feeder of hearts, minds, souls and bellies. Now this has got to be a country never to go hungry in! There is food and snacks on every corner, being thrust through the windows of buses and trains and often just growing right there in front of you!

In my previous blog post i shared my experience of being vegan in India. Although vegan food is in no shortage, the Indian diet can be a little nutritionally lacking. Particularly for a vegan diet. Typical meals are heavy in white carbs (rice and bread) and served with smaller amounts of (delicious) vegetables, but It’s more a flavoursome sauce than a veg fest. Add to that all the spicy fried samosas and puri breakfasts (light puffy fried breads with spicy curry) that are too delicious to avoid, and it may leave your stomach asking whats going on?! Because of this, I made extra effort to get fruit and protein into my diet each day, which wasn’t difficult at all, but simply required some extra thought!

Here are my top healthy vegan eats:

Il start with the obvious:

FRUIT! Fresh, organic fruit is in abundance everywhere you go in India. India’s mango season is a good enough reason to travel during monsoon! They boast some of the best mangos in the world! Bananas are organic, delicious, come in every shape and size and hang off virtually every shop front. Fat ruby red pomegranates are cheap and plentiful, and you’ll find piles of coconuts stacked in the street! The coconut ‘lid’ becomes a perfect spoon! Just get the guy to machete open your coconut after you’ve drank the water! A top tip would be to bring a small folding knife! I used mine almost every day- Mangos whenever you want and watermelons on the beach! Otherwise, the guy at the fruit stall usually has a knife and will slice it up for you :)

[Note: we were in India from june- October, starting in the south and heading north, so fruit availability will depend on when and where you go.]

SOUTH INDIAN FOOD Jam and I easily agreed that south Indian food was where it was at! Masala dosa, idly and sambar, uttapam (Indian pizza!), chapatti and chana masala, unlimited thali plates and fat juicy keralan rice! And the best thing was… Its all vegan! As I mentioned in my previous post, Indian street food is almost exclusively vegetarian! And because oil is cheaper than butter, and eggs are considered NON VEGetarian, its usually a pretty safe bet that it’s vegan too!

My go to meal if I wanted something healthy, filling, cheap and delicious was a Thali plate. We found the best Thali joints by watching where the locals were eating around lunchtime (12-3 ish). Huge piles of rice with daal (lentils/ beans), subji (veg), pickles and salad (and sometimes chapatti too! They are not scared of carbs in India!) They’re also often unlimited; if you finish your plate, they’ll come and dish out more! A huge Thali meal can cost anywhere between 70rupees (local joints) and 200+ in the more touristy restaurants.

Another staple of our south Indian diet was masala dosa. A huge -part crispy - part soft - savoury crepe filled with potatoes, onions and spices. It’s eaten typically at breakfast and may not be the healthiest choice, but it sets you up for the day and is too delicious to miss! It’s served with sambar (spicy sauce) and coconut chutney ( it looks like it contains milk, but I’m assured it doesn’t!)

Healthy Vegan ROAD SNACKS, aside from fruit, are abundant! Look out for grilled corn, straight from the fire with lime and salt, fresh roasted peanuts and chickpeas and fresh fruit juices! Try mosambi - its like a cross between a lime and an orange! (Although sometimes it’s worth checking whether they put sugar in or not, unless you like your juice very sweet). I also ate my weight in samosas and little fried puri filled with lentils. They make the best bus snacks! Especially when they’re fresh, hot, and served with a handful of fried chillies!

PROTEIN AND IRON!

Chickpeas are about to become your new best friend in India (as if they weren’t already?!) Look out for CHANA masala (sometimes chole) on menus and on the street (and its usually one of the cheapest options too!). Chana is often served along side the local, bready breakfasts (puri/ poori, is puffy fried bread and Aloo parantha is bread stuffed with potatoes). Roasted Chickpeas are also a handy road snack and can be found spiced and packaged in most small shops.

-DAAL (lentil curry/soup) is a similar story and can be found everywhere! Just be aware that in the more upmarket, touristy or ‘pure veg’ places they may fry it in ghee (clarified butter), so just make sure to ask for it without. Also, watch out for dal makhani, as its made with lots of cream and butter so not vegan friendly! RAJMA on the other hand is a similar curry made with red kidney beans and is super delicious!

PALAK and MUTTER - spinach and peas, are good sources of greenery! Mutter/ matar masala was one of our favourite curries, eaten by hand with a pile of hot chapatti :)

SWEETS! Aside from fruit and juice, there are fewer vegan options to satisfy a sweet tooth. Most Indian sweets are made with ghee or milk, or if not, they’re cooked in it. However, you can find Oreos almost everywhere and some brands of bourbon biscuits are accidentally vegan too. Watch out for ingredients lists! Some non-vegan ingredients are often listed under ‘added permitted flavourings.’ In south India you can find ‘chicky’ all over the place in different varieties. It’s peanut brittle! And delicious! Just mind you choose one without ghee. They’re the perfect thing to carry for low blood sugar, hangry, emergencies!

WESTERN FOOD/ VEGAN OASIS’ Of course you can find restaurants serving western food catered towards tourists absolutely everywhere! Even McDonald’s is predominantly vegetarian, the one in Amritsar is 100% VEG (no eggs), if you’re so inclined. Cafe coffee day is India’s biggest coffeeshop chain, and in some branches they even do a ‘Vegan coffee shake’. For some reason though you can’t simply order a coffee with Vegan milk… I’m still not sure why..

- AUROVILLE (a ‘universal city’ and kind of commune), just outside Pondicherry is dotted with vegan friendly cafes, restaurants and bakeries. Theres s couple of pizza restaurants that do vegan pizza, complete with cashew cheeze or smoked tofu! (I didn’t actually try them but known they exist!) Theres even an ice cream place, ‘gelato factory,’ that has a selection of vegan flavours! We spent our time in Auroville living and volunteering in a Vegan community, reforestation and water conservation project called ‘sadhana forest’. It was a totally amazing experience and I intend to write about my time there soon! (One of the highlights was the 3, community cooked, 100% vegan, whole food meals we shared together a day!)

-RISHIKESH! Possibly one of my favourite places in India! For so many reasons! The yoga, the ashram, the colourful devotional ceremonies by the Ganges every night, and the fruit salads!! ‘The juice house’, on the road to parmarth niketan ashram, declare that everything is 'made with love’, and you can taste it! I honestly had, without doubt, the best smoothies and muesli fruit salads of my life here! And they have soy milk!! The soy masala chai is amazing too! There are so many Vegan choices in Rishikesh, and after 3 months of eating 3 curries a day, its definitely the place we begun to stretch our food budget!

-MANALI and the 'hummus trail’. Manali was another of our favourite destinations. We were there right during apple season meaning the orchards were teeming with them as well as growing wild along the trekking routes! Best apples I’ve ever tasted! It’s also a destination on what is apparently known as the 'Hummus trail’ which is a route commonly followed by Israeli backpackers across northern India. This has led to a large amount of Israeli food being available! Hummus and falafel?! Need I say more?? -The further north you go, the more a TIBETAN influence starts to show. In some places in Spiti Valley you could easily forget you were in India at all! Tibetan food is delicious and also Vegan friendly! Just ask for VEG thukpa (noodle soup) or VEG momos (delicious steamed dumplings!)

So as you can see, being Vegan in India is far from a chore! We basically didn’t stop eating! Whether vegetarian or vegan, India remains a food capital of the world and there are endless options to enjoy!

After being vegetarian for the best part of 12 years, and having travelled and worked in various places around the world for the past 3, I finally packed my bags to travel to the vegetarian capital of the world, India! The only problem is....

Now I'm vegan. I made the transition to veganism 1/1/2015. It had been an inevitable step for a long while, it just took some final adjustment and education to make it official. At the time I made the change, our extended trip to India was very much planned and imminent. Sometimes I did want to kick myself, ‘oh thanks conscience, great timing!’, but alas, isn't that just how this mysterious life goes?

Now India truly is a vegetarians paradise! Every hotel/restaurant/ tea house/ snack stall has VEG/ NON VEG written over the door, and there are even innumerable PURE VEG food outlets everywhere you go! If in doubt? It's probably vegetarian! Yay! However, India may be a veggie heaven, but its a vegan minefield! 

As we all may know, cows are holy in India! Which becomes evident watching motorbikes and rickshaws swerving them as they lay peacefully in the middle of the road. However, despite (and because) of this, dairy products are ingrained into the food culture here. Cows have been described as the ‘mother of the nation', and the extensive use of milk products would support that view. 

Veganism is not hugely widespread in India and milk and ghee sneak themselves into a variety of food and drink here (like really sneaky! The vegetarian food labelling is extremely strict - green dot for veggie- but milk doesn't even have to be listed on the main ingredients! I've found biscuits where 'milk' or 'cream' where found hiding in 'permitted added flavourings').

However, veganism isn't impossible here, or unheard of (the Jain religion preaches an Ayurvedic, predominantly vegan diet, they also have the most beautiful temples!) It just takes a good, positive attitude and a willingness to try your best!

The thing I've had to keep reminding myself since turning vegan, is why I became vegan in the first place?! Is it because I am afraid or phobic of animal products? Is it a fanatical obsession with one aspect of my life, my diet? Or is it a ethical, environmental, spiritual choice that I made in order to attempt to live my life as kindly as possible. Respecting my planet, and its inhabitants, including my own body?

As a vegetarian I admit I was prone to falling into the first, obsessive camp. I had to have a separate BBQ, section in the freezer, and kitchen utensils to my more carnivorous friends. I would secretly check the packaging of food presented to me in search of the green V. I'd turned down food my mum had lovingly prepared because it contained a spoonful of non vegetarian pesto... This was me until I lived and travelled for two years in south east Asia. Although I remained a vegetarian in diet and principle, there was one constant hidden challenge... Fish sauce! Fish sauce is used in SE Asian cooking like salt and pepper is used in the UK. It's everywhere! And despite always requesting it to be left out, it simply wasn't always an option. It's like when I asked my lovely Thai friend and colleague to prepare some food for a friend without garlic or chilli (due to allergies) and it arrived with both... Her response was a sheepish smile and ‘yeah but only a little!’ , she just wanted it to taste good. I could go on all day with similar tales of humour/ horror (fertilised eggs anyone?!) But il leave that to another day.

So it was during my travelling in Asia that I decided/ learned to relax a little. I still ordered my food without fish sauce, but I also accepted that I had to eat! Loved Asian food! And that I felt it was kinder all round to enjoy the delicious food, made with love, and ignore the occasional suspicion of fish sauce. My principles remained the same, my heart was in the right place!

This is the attitude I am taking with me throughout India. I am trying my best! I am chosing peace and acceptance and respecting a culture which is not mine over my anxiety to remain staunchly vegan! Im championing experience over control! My principles remain the same! But I am not about to turn my hungry nose up against an offer of food for the fear it contains a spoonful of ghee. Nor am i about to waste it! (Saying that, there's usually someone willing to take unwanted food - a cycle rickshaw driver seemed very pleased with my mint, lime - and masala spiced?!? - drink which wasn't to my taste.....) Indian people are unbelievably hospitable, generous and kind. And they love to feed you! In my month here I have been given so so many sweets to try, and did I mention unlimited thali plates?! We often have to stop the servers as they keep happily piling more food onto the already full plate/ banana leaf!

 I drink my chai black (its just as sweet and delicious and good) and I don't eat ice cream or panneer. But I also learn every day, sometimes it means reluctantly cutting something out of my diet (parotta sometimes contains egg...) And other times its pearls of vegan wisdom which make my food journey even more amazing!

For example:

Myth 1) ghee is hidden in everything. 

I was under the false impression that ghee would be in India what fish sauce was in SE Asia. However that is not the case (and it makes sense why). Simply, ghee is expensive, oil is cheap. A couple of new Indian friends informed me of this along with this second nugget of useful advice...

2) steer clear of PURE VEG restaurants. Youd think that was illogical however as it happens, PURE VEG is higher quality, specialty vegetarian food = ghee is used and its more expensive. Whereas VEG / NON VEG usually seems to mean VEG (and also offers one fish dish) - this appears to be true for south India at least.

3) Eggs are considered NON VEG!! Which means you're about 90% sure that eggs won't be sneaking into your food! (This is my own perception over time, so do check! But eggs are always in the NON VEG section of menus)

The food in India is beyond delicious! We tend to eat in the small, simple eateries full of local people. It usually means good, cheap, plentiful food! And is the most likely to be vegan! They may not be the prettiest establishments but you can't knock the food, the service, or the cleanliness!!

The important lessons I seem to be learning are to relax, learn, and enjoy the challenge and experience! Also, communicate! Wherever you are in the world! Veganism comes up as a conversation topic so often without me even trying! And isn't that part of the vegan lifestyle? To gently, kindly spread the word, educate, inform. Not embarrass, alienate and insult! Don't be afraid to ask questions or ask for alternatives! Most people are so happy to help, whether or not they think you're a bit mad.

For me, veganism is about kindness. So be kind to yourself! Try your best! stay true to yourself! But give yourself some slack! Have a sense of humour! Veganism is a lifestyle choice, and it will be a much easier one if you don't give yourself an anxiety attack trying to stick to it!

If the thought of accidentally consuming a small amount of dairy makes you feel disgusted and sick, stick to what you know is safe! And enjoy the abundance of fruit and nuts on offer in India (and around the world!) - bring a foldable knife! It's my one tip! Mangos all day long!

But if you can occasionally turn a blind eye to a forbidden taste of ghee and try again tomorrow, don't beat yourself up about it either. That's my advice! And the advice I give to myself too! It all depends on your priorities. I truly admire staunch vegans who won't accept anything less, but I'm also learning to accept that my priorities lie in my experiences and my willingness to live the kindest I can, in the most peaceful way I can.

I hope someone somewhere finds this helpful and informative! Go forth vegans into the world and be inspirational and wonderful! :)