{"id":17225,"date":"2021-04-13T10:00:38","date_gmt":"2021-04-13T14:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/?p=17225"},"modified":"2021-03-24T13:22:03","modified_gmt":"2021-03-24T17:22:03","slug":"an-interview-with-japanese-veg-writer-hiroko-kato","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/2021\/04\/13\/an-interview-with-japanese-veg-writer-hiroko-kato\/","title":{"rendered":"An Interview with Japanese Veg Writer Hiroko Kato"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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By Nina Lehr, VRG Intern<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, vegetarian and vegan writers are producing a wide\narray of engaging content. Consumers now have a plethora of both entertaining\nand informative reads about the plant-based lifestyle at their fingertips!\nSimply search up \u201cVegan books\u201d on Amazon, and you\u2019ll be met with over 10,000\nresults! One writer who is contributing to this explosive movement is Hiroko\nKato, a Tokyo-based freelance writer who is currently working on a vegan\nnutrition book for Japanese consumers. In an interview with her, Kato shared\nher story of learning about and eventually adopting a vegetarian diet. \u201cWhen I\nstarted my freelance career, I applied for a program that I could work with\nmedia in the U.S. to learn writing in English as well as to experience the\nInternet media situation. The Vegetarian Resource Group was the one that\naccepted me, then I became interested in vegetarianism. I had no idea what it\nwas first, but soon I realized how exciting the vegetarian world is.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Kato also shared\nher inspiration for starting her current book project: \u201cThere is plenty of\nuseful information written in English, but some of them don’t fit for us\n[Japanese people] just because of the difference in dietary habits.\u201d Kato will\nserve as the book\u2019s editor, in addition to contributing several articles\nregarding the basics of veganism. The exciting project will be published within\nthe next 1-2 years! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Kato additionally\ndiscussed the state of the vegetarian\/vegan movement within Japan. \u201cIn general,\npeople are still confused about the idea. For example, I often have [been\nserved] a salad with bacon when I order salad without meat at restaurants.\nAlso, they think preparing food without fish is difficult, because fish stock\nis deeply connected with traditional Japanese dishes, such as Miso soup. The\nJapanese translation of the word \u2018vegetarian\u2019 is a person who eats vegetables,\nso they tend to forget that soy products are also vegetarian ingredients.\u201d\nStill, she mentioned a lot of progress being made recently. \u201cThe situation is a\nbit changing these years. You can find many crowded vegan restaurants,\nincluding the top restaurant in the Happy Cow’s list, here in Tokyo. Now food\ncompanies are eager to create vegan, or plant-based, products that they expect\nJapanese people, especially young ones, are interested in trying the eating\nstyle.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

     There is clearly\nmuch to be optimistic about, and veg writers such as Kato are playing an\nimportant role in the movement\u2019s rapid spread world-wide! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here are articles\u00a0that Hiroko wrote while doing her VRG internship:https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/journal\/vj99sep\/1999_sep_vegetarianism_japan.php<\/a>
https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/journal\/vj99nov\/1999_nov_japanese_holiday.php<\/a>
https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/journal\/vj2003issue3\/2003_issue3_noodles.php<\/a>

Information on VRG internships can be found here: https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/student\/index.php<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Nina Lehr, VRG Intern Today, vegetarian and vegan writers are producing a wide array of engaging content. Consumers now have a plethora of both entertaining and informative reads about the plant-based lifestyle at their fingertips! Simply search up \u201cVegan books\u201d on Amazon, and you\u2019ll be met with over 10,000 results! One writer who is […]<\/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-17225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17225","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=17225"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17225\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17227,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17225\/revisions\/17227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}