British food creator Julius Fiedler hails vegan food in India; why he calls India ‘the biggest vegan paradise’
It starts with hunting for the little green dot on menus, grilling waiters about the secrets inside a curry; stretches up to discovering, halfway through a meal, that your “veggie” dish is floating in butter. Not “made vegan” to fit someone’s dietary rules, just traditional recipes that happen not to use animal ingredients. For Fiedler, India wasn’t just a place to explore food; it became an unexpected lesson in how “regular” meals can be vegan without needing a special label. Yes, ghee is used liberally, but it’s often optional, being added only at the end or to create luxurious desserts,” adding, “Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism, three of India’s major religions, are driving forces behind so much of the local food being vegetarian, and often plant-based.
Let’s be real: even though vegan food has become increasingly popular and accessible all over the world, traveling as a vegan can mean a lot of stress. However, for British food creator Julius Fiedler, though, India turned out to be a whole different game. After weeks of eating his way across the country, Fiedler noticed something that might surprise a lot of first-time visitors, but not most Indians. Plant-based dishes are everywhere. In an Instagram video, he showed off everything from South Indian sadya and dosa to street foods like pani puri and vada pav, showing just how much Indian cuisine caters to people who skip meat and dairy, without even trying. His discoveries set off a wave of conversation online. Indians, who often take their veg options for granted, started chiming in too. In his post, he wrote, “I visited India for four weeks and never struggled to find something wonderful to eat. He pointed out that festival and wedding meals in many communities, cooked by tradition as vegetarian, often end up being fully plant-based. He geeked out on how idlis, vadas, and dosas are made with a simple ferment of rice and lentils, with nary an egg or a drop of dairy involved, sharing, “everyday staples like dal, dosa, idli, sambar and much of the incredible street food just happens to be entirely plant-based. That’s probably the best lesson here. In India, plant-based eating isn’t about the latest lifestyle trend or dietary rule. It’s about a rich food culture where a bowl of sambar, a pile of fresh greens, or a chickpea curry already fits the bill, without any fancy label.