This vegetarian restaurant is busy serving fresh vegetables cooked to its eager diners. Their mouths water as they bite into the vegetarian fares.

I started coming here about a year ago. Now I bring my friends, too. Since vegetables contain lots of antioxidants, my body feels better since I started eating vegetarian. The dishes taste clean and delicious. When I eat meat, it feels heavy, but my body feels refreshed and lighter when I eat vegetarian dishes.

Vegetarian restaurant owner Choi Jeong-an says the recent vegetarian fad in Korea has helped bring more patrons to the restaurant. She is now more motivated to come up with new meatless menus. At her restaurant even what looks like meat is made of vegetables.

Everything is made of vegetables. We have vegetarian bulgogi, vegetarian fried cutlet, and stir-fried noodles. I can even make vegetarian dumplings. We use two types of vegetarian meat – one made with soybeans and the other with wheat. The soybean-based meat uses all sorts of beans and vegetables, while the wheat-based meat mixes wheat protein, nuts, and vegetables. Both feel and taste like the real meat. We make hamburgers, spaghetti, vegetarian sweet and sour pork, vegetarian ramen, and hotdogs with these meat-like ingredients. We also serve thirteen kinds of coffees, including organic coffees, soy latte, soy mocha, and soy cappuccino.

There are times when recent vegetarians miss eating meat. That’s when the recent converts come to this restaurant to sate their carnivorous craving. The soy meat looks and tastes just like beef. The restaurant’s soy bulgogi rivals the real bulgogi made with choice cuts of Korean beef in every way. The alternative meat glistens in the sauce and looks very appetizing.

I live in this neighborhood and I come to this restaurant often. Today I came to have bulgogi-covered rice. It looks like real meat, but it’s actually soy and wheat meat. It tastes like the real thing but it’s not as heavy or greasy. It’s quite filling so I don’t feel hungry. I feel recharged with nature’s energy.

Vegetarianism is a new culinary fad in Korea. The Korea Vegetarian Union reported that 2% of the Korean population is vegetarian, much lower than in India or Taiwan, where 20% 0f their populations stay away from meat for religious reasons, or even lower than the United Kingdom with a 12% vegetarian population and the United States with 5 to 6%. However, 20% of the Koreans are potential vegetarians, who are willing to go meatless. Accordingly, more and more vegetarian restaurants are sprouting up all over the nation, currently amounting to about 300 nationwide. An increasing number of Koreans are ready to give up the fullness and heaviness of meat and opting for the refreshing and light flavors of vegetables. The biggest reason for their herbivorous conversion is health. Obesity, hypertension, diabetes, and cardiovascular diseases have forced these people to pay more attention to their eating habits and consume more vegetables.

Neurosurgeon Dr. Hwang Seong-soo is a case of “practice what you preach.” He became a vegetarian himself after years of recommending more vegetable intake to his patients.

As a neurosurgeon, I have seen the devastating effects of vascular diseases, such as stroke. Stroke occurs largely when a person already has hypertension or diabetes, which is caused by unhealthy eating habits. Modern medicine can’t treat hypertension, diabetes, and obesity that effectively. Drugs can only do so much for these diseases. People have to change what they eat, which means they have to avoid meat, fish, eggs, and milk, while consuming lots of brown rice, vegetables, and fruits. I emphasize the importance of changing their eating habits, giving up animal-based foods and relying on plant-based foods to treat their diseases. I came to be known as a vegetarian missionary, because I tell everybody to adopt vegetarianism.

Dr. Hwang says animal-derived food like meat and dairy wears out the body, while plant-based food does not.

Animal-derived food contains many substances that the human body does not need, causing diseases, lowers quality of life and shortens lifespan. On the other hand, plant-based food contains just the right amount of protein and neutral fats our body needs. It has no cholesterol, so it doesn’t cause hardening of arteries, or better yet it fixes it. It helps lose weight and its high fiber content helps prevent constipation. Produce-oriented meals help prevent and treat osteoporosis, hypertension, and obesity. Also, vegetables and fruits have lots of antioxidants, which suppress cancer, delay aging, and prevent arterial sclerosis. It also helps you fight off infections like a cold.

The greatest misconception about vegetarians is that they eat only vegetables. That is not true. Vegetarianism is divided into six levels: semi-vegetarianism includes everything except for red meat; pesco-vegetarianism includes seafood, but not meat; lacto-ovo vegetarianism allows dairy products and eggs, lacto-vegetarianism avoids eggs while allowing dairy products; fruitarians eat only fruits; and vegans stick to a strict vegetable-only diet, without eggs and milk. Your vegetarianism style should be decided based on your health and physical conditions.

Vegetarian means a person who eats only vegetables, but a human being cannot live on just vegetables. Vegetarians have to have a balanced intake of grains, fruits, and vegetables. Too much grain would cause obesity and too little weight loss. Too much vegetables causes diarrhea and excessive fruit intake also isn’t too good. How much of each food group you should eat depends on your weight. If you are close to the average weight, you should just watch your grain intake. If you’re underweight, eat more grains and less fruits and vegetables. If you’re overweight, cut down on your grains consumption. You have to decide on the food proportion based on your weight change. A balanced eating habit helps you overcome many diseases and improves your quality of life.

Actually, those who converted to vegetarianism are generally satisfied with their choice. Hwang Ji-hee, who had been overweight for a long time, strongly recommends vegetarianism, claiming that she not only lost weight, but now has clearer skin.

I used to weigh 60 kilograms, but lost a lot of weight, about ten kilograms, after I became a vegetarian. Just changing my diet helped me lose five kilograms easily, which is why I’m so crazy about vegetarianism. Also my skin changed. My skin used to be so rough, but my acne scars almost disappeared after I took up vegetarianism. I tell my friends that they don’t have to use expensive skincare products to have better-looking skin.



Keener interest in vegetarianism led to a greater number of vegetarian restaurants and vegetarian college students. A group of vegetarian students in Seoul National University, calling themselves “Kongbat,” meaning a soybean field in Korean, have succeeded in turning many of their fellow students into vegetarian. Here’s Kongbat’s president Kang Dae-woong.

Kongbat was founded in July 2009. Back then there were very few vegetarian menus in school cafeteria, so we started campaigning for more vegetarian fares. We even handed out vegetarian sandwiches, hotdogs, and breads. We also found out that there are many more vegetarian students at SNU, which prompted the school authorities to hear our demands after a while. In October 2010 the school set up a vegetarian corner at the cafeteria and we’ve been steadily engaging in vegetarianism-related activities in school.

Active campaigning by Kongbat led to a vegetarian buffet inside an SNU cafeteria, and another one was soon to follow.

- It’s delicious and feels healthy. Ordinarily, it’s hard to eat such a wide variety of vegetables. Today I had some rice with black beans, white kimchi, apples, and sweet and sour tofu. The dishes were all low sodium and I feel full. There are always a lot of people here and a long line. It’s always crowded.
- They have soy meat, which is healthful, and sweet pumpkins, which are low cal and very filling. They also have lots of fruits, like tomatoes, orange, and apples. It’s also more helpful to my weight loss plan to eat here. It’s better for my health, although it costs about two thousand won more than ordinary cafeterias.

Some vegetarians opt to eschew meat for reasons other than health. Byun Eun-ji, a member of Kongbat, says she joined the vegetarian group after she read a shocking book about animal slaughter and the environment.

The book was about factory-style livestock farming. It described in raw details how meat was produced and distributed. It was really shocking and I wanted to do something in protest. So I joined the vegetarian club in school.

Homemaker Kim Mi-young hates touching meat and fish when preparing meals, so she gradually changed all family meals to vegetarian ones.

I hated having to handle meat and fish. It felt mushy and I hated seeing the blood when I cut through the fish and meat. The best thing about going vegetarian is that I no longer have to touch them. It’s also much healthier and I realized that I can eat well and stay healthy without hurting animals. I’ve been vegetarian for eight years now.

People opt for vegetarianism for various reasons, but they are all satisfied about their choices. Neurosurgeon Dr. Hwang Seong-soo says vegetarianism also helps solve the problem of starvation.

Dietary patterns and starvation are closely related. All animals are grown on grain feed. But the amount of grain that goes into raising one cattle is enough to feed ten people. So eating meat is like monopolizing the food that could feed ten other people. It’s always the poor and weak who suffer from starvation. It is said that 800 million people go hungry today and 25 thousand people die from starvation every day. That’s 15 million people per year. If people ate only plant-based foods, we wouldn’t need so many animals that grow on grain feed and there would be enough leftover grain to feed all the starving people.

Vegetarianism also helps protect the environment. An environmental group claimed about 50% of greenhouse gases are emitted by the livestock industry. Fertilizer manufacturing produces carbon dioxide and animal excrements and methane emissions pollute the water and air.

It takes a staggering amount of grain to raise animals. Carbon dioxide is produced from grain processing and cattle and pig excrements emit methane gas. Both are greenhouse gases that cause global warming. Since pigs and cattle are so much bigger than humans, they excrete dozens of times more than humans as well. Animals also use more oxygen and expel more carbon dioxide than humans. There are reportedly one billion cows in the world and each one is ten times the size of one person. That means cows emit more carbon dioxide than all seven billion people combined.

People are still divided over the extent of vegetarianism that can be accepted in our lives, even among vegetarians. Some vegetarians argue for complete veganism, while others recognize the need for animal protein. But there is one thing both camps agree and that’s people need to eat more vegetables and fruits to stay healthy. You don’t have to change your diet overnight, but having a vegetarian meal every now and then would be a great start to a healthier you.