36 Environment
Turning a Minus into a Big Future Plus The Gwangju Vegan Tamsikdan
www.gwangjunewsgic.com
March 2022
COMMUNITY
By Chung Hyun-hwa
W
orldwide, more people are converting in veganism for mostly three reasons: health, love for animals, and an effort to fight against the climate crisis. Here, I would like to introduce a group of young pro-vegans who are discovering vegan-friendly restaurants in Gwangju, investing their own funds to find “other” options in their spare time: They are the Gwangju Vegan Tamsikdan (광주비건탐식단) or Gwangju Vegan Explorers. THE MOTIVE The harsh truth is that Gwangju is not the easiest city for vegans or pro-vegans. The Gwangju Vegan Tamsikdan decided to group together to find vegan-friendly restaurants for themselves. Their idea was not to convince restaurants to create additional new vegan menus but to convince them to serve vegans by excluding animal ingredients. It was certainly not about money but rather the intention to reach out because it would cost nothing. THE ACTIONS Most restaurants in Gwangju serve dishes containing animal-based ingredients such as animal-based stock, oyster sauce, fish sauce, fish soy sauce, and honey, in addition to meat, eggs,
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shells, and dairy. The Gwangju Vegan Tamsikdan explains and asks restaurant owners nicely if it is possible to exclude these animal ingredients from some of the menu items, and some kindly agree. This information about veganpossible restaurants was shared on their Instagram page (@vegantamsikdan) with its 500 followers and their personal SNS pages. They have created maps for these restaurants on the KakaoMap and Notion apps. Not only that, the members also chipped in some money to make vegan stickers to attach to the restaurant menus, with the owners’ approval. This was done for everyone who wishes to practice “one plant-based-meal-a-day,” whatever their reasons are, be they related to health and allergies, animal rights, and/or climate and environmental issues. Their efforts are slowly changing restaurants to recognize this demand for vegan options and providing these options so that vegans can eat out with their not-yet-vegan friends without having to bring along packed food from home. 1. Veganism in Korea Korea is known to have about 2,500,000 vegans as of 2020. The number has gone up greatly compared to 150,000 in 2008.
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2022-02-23 �� 12:29:19
