Eating in the Philippines

I know several PCVs who came to the Philippines as vegetarians for one reason or another. These volunteers deal with rather strange and funny questions and situations when they tell people they do not eat meat such as,

"Oh, I'm sorry I do not eat meat, do you have something with just vegetables?"
"Yes, of course, we have ginataang manok which is vegetables with chicken."
"I don't eat chicken..."
"Why not?"
"Because I'm a vegetarian.."
"But you still eat chicken right? Ok, I will bring you ginataang manok"

These conversations are quite hilarious maybe once but can be very frustrating if you have to deal with it at every meal or so. Peace Corps does make it clear that this type of diet may be difficult to maintain. Some PCVs have managed to walk the path (kudos) but others have adapted to the more local cuisine style. Furthermore, the liberal use of MSG in all types of cooking and the popularity of fried food makes it difficult for even a general omnivore to eat well.

Strangely, despite all the difficulties that vegetarians encounter and the profusion of generally unhealthy foods and types of cooking, I believe that my diet has improved compared to my diet in the US. I attribute this in large part to my luck in being close to and having a great relationship with Bountiful Harvest which provides us with a weekly supply of organic veggies. I still eat meat with large chunks of fat on it and fried fish but when we cook at home we eat many meals with just the veggies from Bountiful.

 I would not say that Krystal and I set out to change our diet, it rather slowly changed over time as we introduced more healthy foods into our cooking. Bountiful Harvest was the start but it continued as we swapped out meat for tofu which is actually readily available in Puerto Princesa. When we make tacos we use tofu instead of ground meat. It still tastes great just a different texture. I even started drinking soy milk, I know gross right, but here is the trick. It's not milk, don't think that its milk at all, because for me I unconsciously expected it to taste like milk and of course it tasted weird so I didn't like it. But by thinking of it as a soy drink you remove the milk connection and your flavor expectation changes. Also we usually don't buy any of the snack food that is here for the house, we still get the occasional candy bar or something but what we have in our house is predominately healthy. Our PC allowance probably helps with this too; chips and stuff are expensive!

I think that another factor that may have pushed us onto the path of healthier eating was the first several months in the Philippines and the massive amount of unhealthy food we ate. Or maybe we are just getting older lol. Whatever the case may be, I am both excited and a little worried when we get back to the US. I can't wait to eat US food and I am sure our first shopping list will be very long but at the same time I hope that we can maintain the changes and additions we have already made to our diet.