Live Healthy Abroad: Find tofu, organic produce, and recycling (if you're lucky)!

Who am I?

Throughout my life I have traveled with family, volunteered abroad, studied abroad, worked abroad and lived abroad for varying amounts of time. Throughout my various adventures abroad I have struggled to maintain physical and emotional well being while away from home. At times I have felt so emotionally and physically depleted that I no longer wished to travel. Rather than letting my struggle to maintain health abroad stop me from living the life I desire, I have decided to dedicate more time and energy to finding strategies to alleviate the struggle.

In this blog I will share my experience finding strategies to create and/or maintain health while abroad. Not every tip will work for everyone or in every context. Always bear in mind that I am writing from the perspective of a vegan living in Santo Domingo. However, it is my hope that anyone who reads this will be able to take away bits and pieces to implement in their own unique context. If you find one piece of advice in my blog that increases your quality of life while abroad, then I have accomplished my mission!

This blog is a journal of my efforts to learn more and, as such, I welcome and encourage comments and suggestions and for you to share your own experiences.

In health,

Katie

Monday, October 10, 2011

Find tofu, organic produce, and recycling (if you're lucky)!

If you are a traveling vegetarian or a vegan you may be wondering if you will have access to tofu while traveling. If you are a big fan of organic food and you are going to be living abroad for a long time, you may be concerned about access to organic products. Depending on where you are, particularly if you are in a big city, you might be able to access tofu and organic food if you think outside the box. Here's how we have done it.

Tofu: We have seen packaged tofu in grocery stores a few times, but it's nearly twice as expensive than in the U.S. and it isn't always there. Solution? China town! That's right... there is a one-block long China town in Santo Domingo with a few restaurants and a few grocery stores. By asking around we found a Chinese restaurant willing to sell us their freshly made tofu! It is fun to venture into China town once a week, and the tofu is relatively cheap, fresh and delicious! You may not have a China town (or you might be living in Asia and you can disregard this entirely!), but many big cities will have a Chinese restaurant. Stop in and ask!

This goes for other ethnic foods as well. You may be living in Latin America and craving Indian food. There may or may not be an Indian restaurant, but there is likely a small Indian community somewhere in town - search them out and find out how they are making their food!

Organic produce: In most cities you can likely find an eco-conscious community. All it takes is finding a way to plug yourself into this network of people. For us, we met one person who informed us about an organic fair, we went to the fair and put ourselves on every email list, then we received an email from the one organic market in town asking for our weekly order (which we then pick up on Tuesdays), and voala!

You can go to restaurants, supermarkets, gyms, yoga classes and other venues where eco-conscious people are likely to gather and ask around. There may not be an organic market or delivery/pick-up service, but getting yourself plugged into this community will help you find the options that exist.

For us, becoming acquainted with the small organic produce-buying community has also introduced us to a small start-up recycling initiative. All of these things are small and off the beaten path, but they are there... you just have to put in the effort to find them.