Not Impossible: China's Vegan Meat Culture Goes Back 1,000 Years
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Published 2020-06-04
We went to Lily's Vegan Pantry, which has been selling traditional Chinese mock meat for 25 years, to learn more about veganism in Chinese cuisine. We also talked to the founder of a Chinese company that specializes in faux pork products to understand how the Asian market differs from the West.
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Producer: Clarissa Wei
Videographer: Nathaniel Brown and Hanley Chu
Editor: Hanley Chu and Joel Roche
Animation: Ray Ngan
Mastering: Victor Peña
Music: Audio Network
All Comments (21)
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I live in China, I became vegetarian 3 years ago and since then I've discovered so many meat alternatives in stores, farm markets and Taobao. It's pretty easy to cook vegetarian and vegan food in China, but it's hard to find options in restaurants, since the mayority of food is cook with pork lard and there are always traces of meat in vegetable dishes.
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We hardly ever see coverage on vegan ethnic foods and I’ve always been interested in reducing my meat intake. Going between my cultural flavors and wanting to consume less meat always felt almost impossible. Thank you for this video!!!
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Now remember everyone it’s mostly American vegan or vegetarian food that sucks
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The main thing is Chinese people have a 初一 十五 or 1st and 15th day of the month where they had to go vegetarian and carry out prayers. And so the vegetarian stalls can make money. And honestly Vegetarian Char Siew and Vegetarian Goose is really nice in bee hoom
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Love a good Chinese veggie restaurant! <3 Great video!
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@0:10 soy or mushroom. Gluten is the most important ingredient that was left out
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The amount of vegan/vegetarian Asian restaurants is amazing. I live in the LA county & I’ve never had a bad experience!
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I was never a fan of Chinese food when I wasn’t a vegan but I actually like it more as a vegan. I tried a new Chinese restaurant in a recent video and was pleasantly surprised by their food! I can’t say that the imitation meat tastes exactly the same as meat, but I thoroughly enjoy it!
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This channel has good videos. They should get more hits, but they need to figure out how to game the YouTube search algorithm like other channels with crappier videos.
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if you live in the LA/ san gabriel area - the GO TO spot is Happy Family in monterey park, they have the best vegan chinese food
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chinese vegan food is so much better they taste amazing i have it a lot when we visit our local chinese temple.
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Ok these videos are highly underrated for the work they provide.
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You know the best part? It taste so good.
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Some Indians (not me) also follow a non-allium diet for the same reason: to control desires. Re not eating meat. Back when I was a practicing Buddhist, I was already a lacto-ovo-vegetarian. My sifu / master said that meat is fine, but as a Buddhist, you should not have an animal killed specifically for you to eat. Buddha himself ate whatever was donated to him, though preferred a vegetarian diet
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The meat industry has become totally unsustainable in addition to animal cruelty issues;methane greenhouse gases, low productivity , and recent infection related incidents;therefore, vegan meat is the one and only way.
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Interesting video, would love recipes of these traditional Chinese mock meats.
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Yesss THANK you for this video. I remember going to a Chinese vegetarian restaurant when I was growing up in Los Angeles and they had a lot of fake meat.
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It's not just made out of soy or mushrooms, a lot of Chinese mock meats are made of gluten, and that's usually what gives the best chewy texture
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Great stuff, keep up the good work!
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I remember visiting a Buddhist temple when I was younger with my grandmother. Food was delicious....Before I broke out with a rash. One heck of a place to learn you're allergic to non fermented soy. Luckily it wasn't severe.
