can you eat vegan in South America?

[from Adeline Bash @ Trekking Through It, 10 October 2010]

An American Vegan In Chile.

When I came to Chile I expected to be hungry…

I had given up animal products six months ago and my school had warned me South American fare was not vegan friendly.

My counselor suggested I begin reincorporating meat back into my diet immediately, to avoid getting sick while I was abroad.

I wanted to experience the culture and didn’t want to come off as a pretentious American to my future Chilean family, but eating meat again? That was out of the question.

I reasoned that I would do my best to avoid it, but told my advisor that, if need be, I would eat eggs and dairy again. But after discussing it with my mom, who also recently adopted a vegan diet, I gained a new perspective.

She reminded me that my diet was about more than food. My decision to stop eating meat was not a new fad. It was not one of my numerous New Year’s health kicks that I knew I would inevitably give up. It was about how I wanted to interact with the earth and the other living things with which we share it.

I revised my application form and stated that I intended to maintain a vegan diet during my time abroad. My counselor was apprehensive, but told me I should be fine.

Nonetheless, with everything I’d heard about the Chilean diet—carne at every meal, bread cooked with animal lard—I expected to be hungry.

But after being here for a little under three months my experience has been the opposite.

Like most of my American girlfriends my jeans are fitting tighter and I am enjoying every minute of gorging myself on the magnificent—and unbelievably cheap—fruits and vegetables that line Chile’s busy outdoor marketplaces.

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