Hi, I am Jade, but this is not my real name. I decided to call myself Jade in my blog because I wanted to emphasize my cultural background by my name and my blog name. You probably know what jade is. It is a green precious stone which is usually used to make jewellery and is the national stone of Japan. Yes I am japanese, born and raised in Japan and food is always one of my obsessions, especially vegan and non meat food, since I am flexitarian. Of course, I eat meat ocassionally because I am not a vegan and think eating ethically produced meat and eating wild fish once in a while is not so bad.
Unfortunately, finding meat that is produced considering animal welfare is almost impossible and even finding free range egg is so hard in most supermarkets in Japan. So, what I do is ordering ethically produced products online and freezing them eating once or twice in a month. Naturally, I went for becoming a flexitarian and got interested in Zen cooking(Shojin-Ryori) which is the traditional East Asian cuisne, but is actually any food or product prepared and handled according to Buddhism. To be honest, I am not religeous at all even my groundmother is a devout buddhist, but I think the life style and diet of monks in traditional temples are incredibly healthy. I remember few years ago, when I visit an old temple in Kyoto for sightseeing, a guide explained how long the most head priests lived even when in hundreads of years ago! Of course I can’t copy their lifestyle completely, but eating a little bit consciously can be fit in my daily life. Therefore, I started to learn Zen cooking and twist some traditional dishes for modern version, which is quite fun! This blog is basically about how you can be healthy and enjoy delicious food at the same time. I introduce you vegan version of Japanese food and sweets, Zen cooking dishes and some Flextarian food.