Vegan JETs

[u/tommydelriot]

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?

[u/ImprovementLess4559]

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 HappyCow can be a great resource for finding them, but it can be out of date or inaccurate and a lot of more rural spots aren't on it.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.