When I travel, I try to eat at vegetarian restaurants as much as my budget allows because one I like the food and two I want to patronize those establishments and help them prosper.
Usually in South America, they're hard to come by, found only in the bigger, more progressive cities. In Bolivia, of all places, we were blown away by the sheer number of veggie eateries in the country. You could actually choose between restaurants, and the majority of them were quite good.
Even more amazing is that 95% of the clients (everyone but Pauline and I) were Bolivians. Did Bolivians all of a sudden take a nutritional leap forward and say goodbye to their meat-laden and mostly fried diet ? We asked, to several people in each city.
"No," they all answered. Very few of the customers were actually vegetarians. "My doctor told me to eat vegetarian because of..." And they'd fill in the blanks with coronary and circulatory conditions, weight issues, and a variety of digestive disorders.
Bolivians are notoriously undereducated when it comes to nutrition. They generally think an avocado has more cholesterol (it has none) than a llama (they think it has none). Because there's little understanding of what's good and what's bad for you, they generally stuff themselves with foods rich in fat, salt, and sugar (yum !)...and avoid vegetables (ick !) if they can.
So finally, upon reaching the pinnacle of malnutrition, their doctors finally beseech them and preach to them to eat more vegetables. Finally.
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| Api, a delicious marbled Bolivian drink made from purple and yellow corn |
Even more amazing is that 95% of the clients (everyone but Pauline and I) were Bolivians. Did Bolivians all of a sudden take a nutritional leap forward and say goodbye to their meat-laden and mostly fried diet ? We asked, to several people in each city.
"No," they all answered. Very few of the customers were actually vegetarians. "My doctor told me to eat vegetarian because of..." And they'd fill in the blanks with coronary and circulatory conditions, weight issues, and a variety of digestive disorders.
Bolivians are notoriously undereducated when it comes to nutrition. They generally think an avocado has more cholesterol (it has none) than a llama (they think it has none). Because there's little understanding of what's good and what's bad for you, they generally stuff themselves with foods rich in fat, salt, and sugar (yum !)...and avoid vegetables (ick !) if they can.
So finally, upon reaching the pinnacle of malnutrition, their doctors finally beseech them and preach to them to eat more vegetables. Finally.
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