Hi! I’m a 21-year-old student living in the Netherlands right now and I’d love to study a semester abroad in Japan. Japanese culture and its beautiful cities are very appealing to me. However, I can’t eat pork due to religious reasons.
I researched this topic already and I’ve found that a huge portion of Japanese dishes is processed with pork. I was wondering how difficult it is to avoid eating pork within Japan, and if there is a difference in the difficulty of not eating pork in the Kanto region (mainly Tokyo) compared to the Kansai region (mainly Kyoto). And I also wonder if my dietary restrictions will affect my social life in both cities.
I’d love to go but if you don’t recommend it, please let me know. I’m leaning towards Japan right now and if it’s too difficult I’ll put more research into Taipei/Seoul/Singapore.
Thanks in advance!
26 comments
Chicken, beef, and fish dishes exist.
It’s not that difficult to avoid eating pork in Japan. Your main issue will be communicating your dietary restriction in Japanese and knowing what to order and what to avoid.
I can think of tons of common non-pork foods: sushi, tempura, some Japanese curry, some kushiage, some donburi, some udon/soba, some onigiri, okonomiyaki, takoyaki, sukiyaki, oden, inarizushi, pickles/vegetable dishes…
You can also find tons of excellent non-Japanese food in Japan, especially in the cities.
Not sure why you say a “huge portion” is processed with pork. I’d be more concerned if you didn’t eat seafood or fish, because bonito and dashi are integral parts of Japanese cuisine and would be much harder to avoid. Even so, I think it would be a silly reason not to experience Japan. Tokyo is a cosmopolitan city, you can find what you need… even vegan restaurants. Kyoto is smaller but you can still manage.
Halal restaurants are slowly, but surely, increasing in Tokyo. A friend of mine who is kosher gave up on eating kosher while living here because 10 years ago, so many things had pork in it. She would even ask the shop and they would assure her that a certain dish contained no pork, only to find out that it has bacon in it. Or she’ll buy something at a supermarket and find out it has pork extract. I think nowadays, it’s gotten easier to find food without pork, but you will still have to be careful. There are mom and pop restaurants that still don’t understand the concept of religious diets. That said, there are many other options for food that others have pointed out, and you’ll likely find it easier to stay away from food with pork in it once you figure out what dishes you like.
I’m a Muslim and I used to live in Kumamoto, Japan for 3 months, and had gone back to Tokyo, Japan for some time. While this is not specifically in Kyoto, I hope this will help!
It depends on you religious belief, if you’re only avoiding pork, it won’t be really difficult. There are so many foods made with chicken, beef, seafood. If you’re going to buy foods at supermarket, just check the ingredients. If there’s 豚 (kanji for “pork”) in ingredients, you may want avoid it. Some foods may have written pork/lard ingredients in different kanji. I used google translator and usually scanned the ingredients, it helped me a lot!
You may have to skip ramen tho because it’s made from pork (the broth, the topping).
But if you’re like some people who strictly stick to, for example, halal-certified foods, it’ll be more challenging. When I lived there, I only ate seafoods/eggs in restaurants. Halal food supermarket is more common in Japan so when I wanted to eat beef/chicken, I bought them from the halal store and cooked it by myself. Or you can dine in in halal/vegetarian restaurant. The number of halal/vegetarian friendly restaurants is growing in Japan, especially in big cities like Tokyo, Osaka. Kyoto as a hotspot for tourist, there should be some available. The downside is, they are usually more expensive compared to non-halal/vegetarian certified restaurant.
So yeah, it won’t be really difficult! At least based on my experience. You still can enjoy so many Japanese foods that contain no pork, and you can ask the restaurant if certain menu has pork or not. They may not be able to modify the menu, but usually, they are willing to suggest for alternative. Japanese people are usually respectful and understanding.
Hope this helps!
There is either [https://www.happycow.net/](HappyCow) or [https://fooddiversity.today/en](portal for Muslim visitors) that should be generally okay for people not eating pork for religious reasons.
Tokyo generally would have more options than Kyoto as it is by far a larger city and gets more visitors from SE Asian countries and in Kansai, Muslim ex-pats are generally concentrated in Kobe and Osaka, which are more business oriented-cities.
As far as effecting your social life: YMMV. If you are a Muslim: note that Japanese social life involves alcohol (and not in moderation).
Note that while Singapore is a cosmopolitan city with fairly large Muslim minority (considering its neighbours), Seoul would be on par (or worse) than Kanto/Kansai areas and Taipei would most be likely most insular of the above-mentioned cities.
I do not think that is is overly hard to find thing without pork. There is a lot of dish that do not include pork such as sushi, udon, tempura, guydon, oyakodon… and that is just some food items.
Example of things that do include or can include pork are tonkatsu (or anything with “ton”, like tonjiru, tonkotsu ramen), ramen, yakisoba, okonomiyaki.
The example you gave of ramen in strange. Ramen noodles are boiled in water, not in pork broth. But yes it is true that a lot of ramen broth/soup do include pork, but not all.
I would like to have more example of what you found to be processed with pork as it does not really seams true to me.
And about any region of Japan would be similarly easy to find dish without pork. It should not have a negative impact on your social life, unless you only make friends that exclusively go eat in restaurant that only serve pork.
If you for you cross contamination can be an issue, then for sure that might limit a bit more as you would have to avoid places where they cook on teppanyaki plate where they have dish with pork, as everything will be cooked on the same plate, so there can be remaining oil on the plate, or place that have fried pork, like a kushikatsu place for example, they would deep frying everything in the same oil, so there can be pork fat melting an mixing in the oil.
I would advise to bring a card that say you do not eat pork to show in stores to ask if it is ok to eat, or as for recommendation. It’s better to get it with more than less, for example include no gelatin as it’s usually a sub product of pork and there is desert that have jelly cubes in it, sometimes it made from gelatin, sometime agar agar and sometime you have both options in the same desert.
Hi there! my family is Muslim and so we don’t eat any food made with alcohol or prepared with pork fat / broth etc., and we also avoid non-halal meat. We went to Japan last December for around 10 days (we started in the Kansai region then moved to the kanto region) and although we had to go out of our way a little to find food, we still had an amazing time in the beautiful country and ate loads of Japanese dishes! there’s an app called Halal in Japan which was a restaurant tracker where you can find restaurants with varying degrees of ‘halal’ rating in your gps location, ranging from totally cold-turkey halal places which are made especially for Muslims, to places which started out as regular non-halal restaurants who now have ‘halal menus’ or can make pork-fat free versions of dishes, sushi without alcoholic vinegar, etc. on certain days. I understand that this might be a bit strange since I’m not sure if you’re actually Muslim or not and if you’re not it might feel quite strange seeking out halal places, but it could be your best bet for peace of mind with avoiding these ingredients since it is quite difficult to ask chefs in Japanese restaurants to adapt the dishes for this requirement since often the pork fat is an integral part of the dish. there’s also a Muslim blog called Have Halal Will Travel which has Japan as one of its countries where they give articles on pork free restaurants, pork free things to buy from convenience stores / conbinis, and also has some resources on ingredient names in Japanese that you can look out for when buying food or eating in other restaurants. This blog helped us find some amazing authentic places which were fully pork free so we didn’t have to worry. Lastly many dishes aren’t made with pork derivatives such as sashimi, many types of Japanese curry (katsu), and loads of desserts like Arashiyama’s signature cotton candy and Nara’s infamous red bean and matcha mochi. It is also commonplace for example for ramen to have the option of either pork or chicken broth, so honestly it depends on your level of reservation with if you allow cross-touching of utensils with the pork etc.
I hope this helped a little and sorry for the long read!
Singapore might be a better option as the locals won’t be eating pork either
Japan is not ideal for those with dietary restrictions but things are improving
Like someone else mentioned avoiding stocks and soups would be wise.
Learn to ask if a dish has pork in it. I am allergic to crab so that was the first Japanese phrase I learned.
There is plenty of Japanese cuisine that does not have pork in it.
Your social life should be fine, especially being a university student there should be others there with similar restrictions or preferences.
Tokyo probably has more non-Japanese restaurants than Kyoto, I see more and more vegan, halal, gluten-free, and other similar places.
When researching for my vegan sister, i came accross words to use for a kind of Buddhist diet that was strickly meat free. Im sorry I don’t remember it atm but that would be an easier way to communicate what you wanted to restraunts.
Lived in Yamaguchi for a yr. I’m a Muslim, didn’t eat pork or chicken or beef as none of the proteins are Halal. I still enjoyed Japanese cuisine. Seafood is excellent. Sushi, tempura, tamago are all widely available and yummy even in supermarkets like seven elevens. My only regret is not being able to enjoy Wagyu and yakitori.
I also don’t eat pork and Japan was my favorite country I have ever visited! It’s actually not that hard to avoid pork there. They eat a lot of chicken, beef, and seafood. One thing that might be difficult to eat is the ramen. A lot of times it is made with pork broth. I ate ramen several times there and had to really seek out restaurants where they had chicken broth options. It’s not impossible, especially in Tokyo! Have fun! It’s so beautiful there and they have the loveliest people! I can’t wait to go back one day.
There’s a surprising amount of Halal food options in Japan. You should definitely be able to find some
My husband and 2 kids (aged 6,3)are planning to travel to japan for 8 days in Feb 2022.(found a great deal )I was just researching about halal places to eat in japan and this post popped up. thank you for all the info.
Edit: I meant Feb 2022
You’ve gotten some great advice so I will try not to be repetitive, but I will add that there has been a large increase in South Asian immigration to Japan, and in consequence there are many more South Asian/Middle Eastern restaurants (that will understand your dietary restrictions) than there were 15 years ago. Even in my grandmothers rural town there are multiple South Asian restaurants and I (half-Asian) barely stand out anymore because everyone is now much more used to seeing people from other countries than they used to be.
I know you probably want to go and eat mostly Japanese food but in a pinch I think you will always be able to find something, even if it’s not the most Japanese! I also agree with what people have been saying, that awareness of dietary restrictions in Japan is improving significantly, and bringing a card with your dietary restrictions explained in detail in Japanese will be very useful!
There are lots of halal eaters in Japan, due to immigration from Malaysia & Indonesia. I would say its probably easier to eat halal than it is to eat vegetarian! (But second the above wrt learn the kanji for pork, and practice explaining).
Most places in Tokyo will have a English menu. Most places won’t care about your dietary restrictions. You’ll just have to look for the word pork on the menu and avoid it. Old school restaurants where the chef is a master at his craft will not care if you don’t eat pork. I worked at catering company in ebisu. We were like one of the only places that did vegan food. But we were New Zealand based and not Japanese. From what other chefs have said and the owner, two who have lived in japan 20 + years. Said that most Japanese restaurants cook there specific dish and that what there known for. Modding it is out of the question usually. You pretty much would have to just look at the menu and avoid it. But yea it wouldn’t be to hard. Just familiar yourself with the kanji and hiragana spelling of pork. Probably avoid almost all Raman as well. Including instant. You’ll want to be carful at katsu restaurants as well. When food is breaded and deep fried it’s hard to tell what it is.
Lived in Japan and I dont eat pork too. It wasnt difficult at all
There’s a Turkish Ice cream place at the Haneda airport! Super fun times and that’s where I saw the app info plus you can ask them. After they give you your ice cream.
Which takes a while …
You’ll have an easier time than vegetarians, I’ll say that much (I’m not vegetarian, but my mum is vegan and she went to Japan with my dad last year)
Even the Japanese word for vegetarian (ベジタリアン, *”begitarian”,* a katakana translation) is not really understood by Japanese people in general
hey,
Het is eerlijk gezegd niet zo heel moeilijk mijn oom is moslim en was ook in Tokyo. Als je gewoon duidelijk aangeeft in vloeiend japans dat je geen varken mag komt het wel goed!
Make a card that says in your native language, in English, and in Japanese that you do not eat pork or pork products. If there is any language issue show this card.
Worked perfect for.my wife’s allergies.
like others have said, it’s very doable. I’ve been vegan in Japan for 8+ years and if you’re only avoiding pork you’ve got myriad options! I also don’t drink. you might get a little good natured ribbing from friends/colleagues but I’ve never felt that I couldn’t eat/not drink what I wanted. always Tokyo or Kyoto FWIW.
also as others said, learning to spot ingredients in lists and communicate your needs will make a big difference.
Plenty of seafood dishes to eat. Avoid the ramen as all of it is mostly pork broth based (maybe you can find a chicken broth one if you don’t mind). Also, plenty of very good vegetarian items too (tofu options in a lot of places).
Everyone else in this thread covered everything else. Highly recommend Japan!!! It’s such an amazing country to visit. I normally don’t re-visit countries, but Japan is definitely one I would go back to in a heartbeat
It’s quite easy to avoid pork here. Many Japanese food is more fish-based because they use bonito stock (dashi) as the base & the proteins are usually seafood too. When it’s pork, it’s usually specifically named.
The only thing that has caught my Muslim friends by surprise is minced meat (挽き肉) at the supermarket is either 100% pork or a mix of beef and pork. It’s very rare to see 100% beef for whatever reason. So even at a restaurant, it’s probably also best to avoid dishes made from minced meat like hamburg steak, they tend to be a mix of beef and pork too.
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