Vegan travelling to India

Does anyone have tips on travelling vegan ? South Indian cuisine is obviously more friendly than North Indian, but is there anything that i can be on the lookout for?

thanks,

-hit

if by Vegan you mean no dairy, you are in for a rough ride. Dairy is all over many of the most common dishes. If you can suffer the dairy, you will have absolutely no problems staying free of meat and eggs.

Can you tell me someplace in Kerala that serves only organic vegan food?Does it really cost a lot?

anyone ever made vegan chai - with soy milk?

my husband is vegan and i'd like to try and make some yummy chai for him.

does anyone who may have made this have any tips?

thanks
julie

I have tried it a couple of times for my lactose intolerant friends:

The best soy milk that I tried was Silk Soy plain flavored in the refrigerated sections as it is creamier than the other types and I added it after boiling my chai with ginger/cardamom completely. Dont boil soy milk, it doesnt taste that great in my opinion. So add as your final flavor.

I have tried it with Rice milk, almond milk and oat milk with varied results. I didnt like the tast of almond milk in my tea and oat/rice came in second after soy.

WestSoy is also a good soy brand and what I usually use. Silk can be a little chalky / residuey. WestSoy also mixes better (my opinion at least). I think it is better if you dilate the chai a little more with water and use less soy milk than you would regular millk.

Hey everyone!
I'm new to the forum
I am travelling to India in a month and I've never actually had Indian food before, I'm very excited but also nervous because I am a vegan. Can anyone recomend specific things that would be on restaurant menus they know for sure have no meat or animal byproducts in them (no butter or milk). Are there many vegans in India?
- Thanks a ton!

Welcome to IM. Keeping dairy products completely out your platter will be slightly issuesome. There is butter or ghee in large quantities in most every food in Indian hotel, resto, dhaba.
But 'no meat' will be very easy to get.

well milk and butter will definatly be a problem. Will there at least be salads and soups on the menu?

Salads are a big issue in India. Hope you have your typhoid A..

You can buy fruit, vegetables and salad in the shops and markets.

If you prepare it yourself (and wash it in bottled water) you will be able to guarantee that is does not contain anything you don't eat.

If someone prepares it for you it will contain butter, milk, ghee, egg or animal fat.

As with every scenario....India can provide, though the restrictions of a vegan diet dictate, that even In India the land of vegetarianism; you'll have to work hard at maintaining your diet. Which is probably the same anywhere, in your home patch, wherever in the world, the ingredients of a vegan diet can be sourced simply by local knowledge.
On a trip through India I would expect a similar reaction to a Vegan diet, the fundementals are there but don't expect a wealth of vegan orientated restaurants!!

To keep the topic afloat, does Parsi cuisine come roughly affiliated with Veganism ???

will the salad be bad even at nicer restaurants?

I had giardia for 6+ months from one small salad I had in a good restaurant in Kathmandu. The menu said it would be soaked in an iodine solution for 15 minutes so I thought it would be ok.

I don't want to be alarmist about salads, if you KNOW it's been well washed (in clean water) or it's peeled (eg cucumber) then it should be ok, but uncooked food is something you need to be careful with in India

Nuts are very plentiful and there are some yummy breads and peelable fruits like bananas, but if you are very strict about animal produce you will find your choices limited.

Washing salads yourself in bottled water isn't good enough. It has to be soaked in a solution that contains bleach or iodine.

Unfortunately, you will have a pretty big problem in India if you are depending on eating salads. It's the one thing I totally eliminate from my diet while I'm there. Way too dangerous, even in a first class hotel restaurant--though I have gambled and been OK, while it should be better, there is no guarantee.

Your food requirements might make your trip very difficult. It would be a shame to have to be thinking about how you can eat all day when there are other things that would be great to be seeing & doing.

I don't know if you can live on fruit you can peel & vegetables you wash & cook yourself. Most of the nutritional food will be prepared with oils & dairy you can't eat. Ironic since India has the BEST & biggest variety of vegetarian food in the world (in my opinion) Maybe South Indian food is more amenable to vegan style? If they don't use ghee. They do use alot of regular nut oils.

Perhaps there is a vegan IMer who can be more optimistic about this issue.