Sustainable Eating in Beijing: How to survive as a Vegetarian...

Beijing: use to be called Peking

one must do in Peking: eat Peking Duck,

so for Vegetarians: 

must find healthy food in Beijing.

Veggie hunting in Beijing...

Not such an easy task:

The chinese have a huge array

of edible animals

from the common chicken,

ducks, fish, lamb, deer, donkey,

turtle, pigs, oysters, cow...

to the more exotic:

scorpions, snakes, beetles and seahorses.

How to eat sustainably in Beijing...

Start around the Buddhist temples,

ok, the Lama temple,

ya, there is the Far Su Vegetarian cafe.

Buddhist do not eat meat,

so they have a vegetable and soya bean based diet.

But think again,

for many years,

during the harshest time in China,

they had a largely vegetarian diet,

thus Chinese find it confusing

that anyone would choose

to be vegetarian during times of prosperity...

So, if you examine closely

their  gigantic picture book menus,

you will actually discover great vegetarian dishes...

Here's what I found:

street food at 1yuan: bread stuffed with cabbage and leeks

seaweed garlic

lotus root, beans, celery, papaya, mushrooms and fungus

mustard leaves in ginger soy

spinach and nuts

wild mushroom soup

dried fruits and nuts

more nuts

boiled noodles in mushroom broth

peach sprouts and walnut

wolfberry sprouts

spiced tofu and nettle

veggie resto near Lama temple

mushroom broccoli

tomato and tofu skin soup

spinach and mixed nuts tower

fresh fruit tea