A growing number of food bloggers with roots in the Middle East are clearing up misconceptions and stigmas surrounding vegetarianism. The region's Middle Eastern diet is often rich in fresh vegetables and fruits, but adopting a completely vegan or plant-based diet is considered radical and unusual for most people.
This attitude is often falsely justified by cultural factors and is passed down from generation to generation to third culture kids living in Western expat communities. For people like me who choose to eat a vegan diet, it can be especially difficult to live comfortably in our families and communities.
Now, a group of Middle Eastern food bloggers are adapting traditional foods to be vegan-friendly and advocating for the personal and collective benefits of a vegetarian diet online and in their own communities.
When I first transitioned to a vegan diet about two years ago, I found the experience isolating and frustrating. As the only vegetarian in a traditional Iranian household, I often felt like a burden at family meals and quickly grew tired of being constantly questioned and scolded as to why I chose to eat the way I did.
This is an experience shared by many people from similar cultural backgrounds, including Mennar Saleh, founder of Earth Brgr, an all-vegan street food restaurant in London.
“My mom is Syrian and my dad is Iraqi, and I knew it wouldn’t be easy to convince my family, so I let them take it slow,” he told me. At the beginning of his vegetarian journey five years ago, Mennar received particularly negative feedback from male family members, who made comments such as "This is not how men eat."
"The Arabs are a proud people and their attitude is 'We've been eating this way for centuries, why should we change now?'" he said.
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Conversations at the dinner table can be particularly anxiety-provoking. Heba runs the blog and Palestinian supper club Gae's Pan. “When someone cooks for you, it’s a sign of love and care, and people thought that by refusing to eat meat I was rejecting their hospitality,” she told me.
"Having to explain why I don't eat animals while sitting at the dinner table made me very uncomfortable, especially since someone claimed that vegetarianism was a rejection of my cultural identity. Eventually, I learned to turn down many dinner invitations," she said .
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Neither Mennar nor Heba let their initial experience stop them and went on to launch their own vegan catering business and prove that you can indeed be both Arab and vegan while respecting your roots.
For many Middle Easterners, food is more than just eating. It forms the backbone of family life. Traditional recipes passed down from generation to generation are at the center of many religious and cultural celebrations, and among immigrant families, food is also a joyful way for those of us far away from home to feel connected to our heritage.
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One of the biggest challenges Marseille-based vegan blogger Sarah Guita faces is navigating traditional gatherings like weddings as a vegan. "It is difficult not to eat animal products at traditional Algerian gatherings. Most of the celebratory dishes contain a lot of meat, such as roasted whole lamb". "That's why I chose to learn traditional dishes and try to vegetarianize them, because I didn't want to separate the two parts of my identity," she explains.
Historically speaking, plant-based diets are not a new phenomenon, even in the Middle East. One of the first vegetarians was the Syrian poet Abu al-Alaa al-Ma'arri over a thousand years ago. The Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) ate a mostly plant-based diet, including barley, bread, dates, and beans.
intersectionality and inclusion
According to data obtained by the Vegan Society, the number of vegans in the UK quadrupled between 2014 and 2019, and in 2020 each of the UK's top supermarkets launched their own range of vegan products.
While plant-based diets are slowly becoming mainstream, depictions of veganism are still overwhelmingly white, with white vegan activists and influencers taking up a disproportionate amount of space.
Leila Hannoun is a vegan food influencer with a large following who runs a popular Instagram page and YouTube channel “Waffles with Leila.” Known for her creative, protein-rich recipes that complement her active lifestyle, Leila is open and proud of her Lebanese heritage online, documenting her pre-pandemic visit to Lebanon in a vlog Access.
Two of the biggest setbacks I encountered on my path to becoming vegan were a lack of support from people I knew and the mistaken belief that I would have to give up my love for Iranian food and just eat avocado on toast for the rest of my life.
Connecting virtually with people like Leila and Scottish-Iraqi blogger Luna Issa who are embracing their backgrounds and making delicious, nutritious food gives me comfort in knowing that I'm not alone and that veganism works for me too it works.
Once I made the transition, I started posting my own vegetarian adaptations of traditional Iranian dishes on my Instagram page, Giyah Girl (Giyah means plant in Farsi). This gives me the opportunity to connect with other vegans online and archive all the delicious food I eat to show people when they get the “so what do you eat?!” question.
Luna tells Bustle she's also received an outpouring of support from other Middle Eastern vegans online.
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"I've gotten so much support for recipe sharing which has been so lovely. I've had people tell me I'm the first plant-based Iraqi they know so it's really cool to be able to showcase the great options we have ”
By taking up space, these Middle Eastern bloggers ensure more people see themselves represented in mainstream vegan narratives and encourage others with similar backgrounds to make more compassionate food choices that will benefit animals, the environment, and The future of our plants is for future generations.
