{"id":16349,"date":"2020-10-28T09:00:21","date_gmt":"2020-10-28T13:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/?p=16349"},"modified":"2020-10-08T10:40:10","modified_gmt":"2020-10-08T14:40:10","slug":"being-vegetarian-as-an-alaskan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/2020\/10\/28\/being-vegetarian-as-an-alaskan\/","title":{"rendered":"Being Vegetarian as an Alaskan"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

By Audrey Hunt, VRG Intern<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have lived in Anchorage, Alaska my whole\nlife and I can tell you that not everyone here is hunting moose and fishing for\nsalmon to stay alive through the winters. Until I was around twelve years old,\nI was a huge meat and dairy eater. I grew up eating ribs, medium-rare steaks,\nand roasted chicken for dinner. Eggs and bacon were my breakfast, and always a\nturkey sandwich for lunch. Sometimes if it was a special day, I would get\nsmoked salmon, freshly caught for a snack. Every time I was able to go out to\neat with my family on a \u2018special occasion,\u2019 it would most likely be at a local\nAlaskan restaurant that would always serve the freshest seafood. I absolutely\nloved seafood. Crab legs, halibut, and of course, Alaskan king salmon. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \nOne day at school when I was in the fifth grade, I noticed a girl my age\neating fish eggs on toast. She was originally from Russia and always brought the\nweirdest lunches. I found myself being completely repulsed from her meal. I\nthought to myself, \u201cWhy would you ever eat unborn fish and simply put it on\ntoast?\u201d I looked down at my lunch and saw a hard-boiled egg and a turkey\nsandwich, and that\u2019s when I had my first epiphany, \u201cWhat makes her lunch weird\nand mine normal?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \nFrom that day, I began to learn more about different cultures\u2019 diets and\nhow they got their major food sources. As an Alaskan, you learn a lot about the\ndifferent Alaskan tribes and their diets. For example, the Athabaskan tribe1<\/sup>\nlived off of caribou, moose, and mountain goat meat during the year; they even\nate off the antlers. The Inuit eat mostly fish and seal. In every textbook and\nevery Native Center I\u2019ve visited, all have labeled\nthe traditional Alaskan Native diet as \u201cideal\u201d or \u201chealthy.\u201d I thought about\nthe term, \u201ctradition\u201d and how it comes into play with our diet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \nA classic family ritual in Alaska, or even in all of America is to hunt\nand fish with your family. Many people come to Alaska\nto catch king salmon that flow in during spawning season in the Kenai River\nor hunt moose in Denali. Hunting began as a\npractice for survival, during a time when resources were sparse and famine was\nheavily influenced. Now hunting is looked at as a sport or an activity that the\nfamily will go out and do a couple of times during the summer. Especially in Alaska, you will always\nfind deer heads, bear rugs, and stuffed ducks as normal house decor items. The\nact of shopping at the local Cabela\u2019s and getting all the camo you can get with\na brand new gun to match is heavily accepted here. Why do we still hunt,\nespecially when the majority of Alaskans are shopping at groceries now? I\u2019ve\ncome to find out that it is simply tradition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \nThere are many pros and challenges when being vegetarian while living in\nAlaska. One of the biggest pros for me personally, is that veganism is a\ngrowing trend even in Alaska.\nIt is very accessible to buy plant-based milk and meat-less brands at our local\ngrocery stores. Since being vegetarian, I haven\u2019t had a problem finding\nalternative meals just at Fred Meyers, a local supermarket. Each year is\ngrowing in these products as well, which shows that more and more people are\nwanting these food items. Anchorage,\n Alaska specifically, has been\nemerged in vegan-friendly restaurants, my favorite being Middle Way Cafe, which\nhas become a tourist favorite as well.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \nHowever, there are many challenges when first transitioning to a vegan\nor vegetarian while living in Alaska. For one, animal meat is very accessible\nhere. Fish are filled in our rivers, and catching your own is a fun family\nactivity for many. Also, the cost of living is high in Alaska, so many people\nfind it worth the fishing trip. Most Alaskan families make salmon for dinner,\nand it has been a label for a lot of Alaskans to be \u201cfish-eaters.\u201d There is a\nslight stigma on vegetarians, even in the major city. I don\u2019t know many\nvegetarians from Alaska, however, the majority\nthat I have met are around college-aged. When being open about wanting to go\nvegetarian, it was a personal struggle to try to explain my reasoning to my\nfamily and friends. There are so little people on \u201cyour side,\u201d I constantly\nfelt like I was walking on glass when discussing the topic.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \nWhile living and growing up in Anchorage, Alaska for the past eighteen\nyears, I have accepted the challenges that come with being vegetarian, while\nalso appreciating the growing population of vegetarians worldwide. Everyone has\na different journey when transitioning to a plant-based diet, and for me, it\nhas only been an uplifting experience. Don\u2019t ever let the stereotypes from\nwhere you are from define you as a person, let alone, your diet. I had to\npersonally go through the battle of feeling like I was letting my family and\nfriends down that I didn\u2019t believe what they did, which wasn\u2019t the case at all.\nAt the end of the day, do what makes you flourish, and eat the foods that make\nyou happy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

[1]<\/sup> \u201cU*X*L Encyclopedia\nof Native American Tribes. Encyclopedia.com. 11 Aug. 2020\u201d Encyclopedia.com<\/em>, 27 Sept. 2020, www.encyclopedia.com\/humanities\/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps\/alaskan-athabaskan<\/a>\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To read about experiences of other young\npeople, see: https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/teen\/#friends<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The contents of this posting, our\nwebsite, and our other publications, including Vegetarian Journal, are not\nintended to provide personal medical advice. Medical advice should be obtained\nfrom a qualified health professional. We often depend on product and ingredient\ninformation from company statements. It is impossible to be 100% sure about a\nstatement, info can change, people have different views, and mistakes can be made.\nPlease use your best judgment about whether a product is suitable for you. To\nbe sure, do further research or confirmation on your own.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Audrey Hunt, VRG Intern I have lived in Anchorage, Alaska my whole life and I can tell you that not everyone here is hunting moose and fishing for salmon to stay alive through the winters. Until I was around twelve years old, I was a huge meat and dairy eater. I grew up eating […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16349"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16349\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16351,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16349\/revisions\/16351"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}