Personal Essay

As a child, I had a hard time eating. I had to eat, but I didn’t like it, except for sweets.

Breakfast and lunch were easy.

In elementary school, lunch was always sandwiches. Usually deli meat, but sometimes liver spread, or (bonus) peanut butter and jam or Nutella. Once, I almost choked on a piece of ham in sixth grade because it was so big and my dad hadn’t cut the fat off.

I was lucky that my parents liked to switch things up for breakfast. Sometimes it was milk and cereal, others, toast, eggs, and sausage. On weekends—if we were lucky—my mom made pancakes from scratch, or we had Spam with a sunny side-up egg on rice.

If you’re surprised to see rice on the breakfast list, let me back up and tell you about my Filipino parents and what they made for me and my siblings.

We usually had Filipino dishes at dinner, made by my dad. Both of my parents were great cooks, but my mom was a nurse and often worked the night shift.

On the plate there was always rice, with either a saucy meat dish or stew with vegetables, or ground or corned beef with onions and beans.

I had a hard time eating beef and liver. I was always the last to leave the table. As I look back, I either had too much rice on my plate (and it was not okay to leave food on your plate), or I didn’t cut up the meat enough to chew it faster.

So I would chew and chew and chew and chew. My sister finished her plate. My brother finished his plate. And I’d chew and chew and chew.

If I finished my meat and vegetables but not my rice, my dad said I could leave the unfinished plate by the rice cooker for him to finish later. Always by the rice cooker, because he never liked to waste food.

Some of the traditional Filipino dishes my parents made were:

Chicken adobo (meat, seafood, or vegetables browned in oil, marinated, and simmered in vinegar, soy sauce, garlic, and other spices)
Kaldereta (meat stew with vegetables and liver paste and sometimes tomato sauce)
Sinigang (a sour and savoury soup)
Arroz Caldo (a take on the Spanish dish made of rice and chicken gruel, ginger, and other garnishes)

We didn’t eat desserts often, and my parents were good about not frying anything; there are a lot of fried dishes in Filipino culture.

Filipino cuisine is very diverse, drawing influence from various places like China and India. Rice is a given, along with a saucy meat or seafood dish or stew. Growing up, I didn’t know how prevalent vegetables were (I still don’t), but fruits are abundant, especially mangos, coconuts, and more exotic ones, like calamansi (a lime/lemon hybrid).

My dad also made other types of dishes like spaghetti, homemade burgers, or he bought us McDonald’s if there wasn’t time to cook. That was a treat.

My mom always made and brought cassava cake to community gatherings. Whenever we went to Filipino parties or my Tita (aunt) Lilah’s house during the holidays, I loved eating lumpia (fried spring rolls filled with pork and vegetables), pancit (a noodle dish), leche flan (Crème caramel, a custard dessert with a layer of clear caramel sauce), and puto (steamed rice cake made from slightly fermented rice dough).

Sometimes my mom bought pastries from Goldilocks Bakeshop for us to eat as a snack after school, and I would devour them. That bakery’s cakes are solely responsible for my love of ube (purple yam), which is purple, my favourite colour.

My paternal grandfather, Lolo Dado, lived with us for a few years when we were growing up, and I remember him serving us the beef and rice dishes. But he was adventurous and sometimes made his famous shepherd’s pie, always with cheese sprinkled on top of the mashed potatoes.

Around that time, my mom’s aunt, Auntie Ethel, lived in the same complex as my Lolo Dado. She would buy me Betty Crocker and Duncan Hines cake mixes, and this started my love of baking.

I went to the University of British Columbia (UBC) but commuted from home, still enjoying my parents’ food most nights. It wasn’t until I lived in Toronto for my third year at university when I really learned to cook for myself.

I took some of my dad’s recipes and learned to simplify them for 1 to 2 servings instead of 4 to 5. I learned how to shop for groceries. When I accidentally forgot to put water in my microwaveable rice cooker, I learned how to cook rice on the stove.

Even though I was learning to cook and eating a lot of Canadian food that year, sometimes I really missed Filipino food. I found an area in Toronto where there were grocery stores that sold Filipino products, and I stocked up on dried mango and longanisa (seasoned pork sausages). When my sister visited me, she brought me a bunch of Goldilocks pastries and even frozen marinated meats. That was awesome.

When I started my career after university, I ate out more and discovered different cuisines. I didn’t realize how much of a foodie I’d become until I ordered lunch for the office I worked at. Sometimes we ordered Thai food from the nearby restaurant.

“Yum! I looove food,” said my co-worker, the first time we ate together. Yeah, I guess I love food too, I thought to myself. Maybe when I was younger, I couldn’t enjoy savoury food, because I was trying so hard to digest it.

In 2007, I watched the documentary Earthlings, which marked the first time I saw how animal-based food was made. Even though I knew about vegetarians and vegans and that eating vegan was the most ethical diet, I never knew it was possible for me to achieve that. After the screening, someone from the audience asked the representative from the Vancouver Humane Society: “What is one thing we can do to help these animals?”

She said, “Stop eating meat.” That statement impacted me deeply, and I vowed to work towards eventually becoming vegan.

I did it over 11 years through a process of elimination. Chicken was the type of meat I ate the most, so I cut out red meat in 2008. In 2009, I removed chicken and attempted to eat more seafood. I say attempted, because I could never make fish or shrimp taste good, no matter how much I tried to season it.

While dating my husband (then boyfriend) Leo and eating out at many of Vancouver’s restaurants, I started buying vegetarian pizza and frozen fish sticks to eat during the week. I thought this was great! I had lost 10 pounds from cutting out meat, and cooking was so easy—because I was barely cooking at all.

Leo noticed my poor diet at home. Because he worked at various restaurants when he was young and was a skilled cook, he told me I needed to eat and cook more whole foods. He taught me how to cut an onion!

I was a reluctant pescatarian for about eight years, learning to cook vegan or vegetarian during the week and then eating fish, fish & chips, and egg dishes out at restaurants on weekends.

After getting married, we went to New York City in 2017, which was on our travel list for a long time. I could write a whole post just on the meals we ate there.

I ate the best seafood meal of my life at Morimoto (owned by Iron Chef Masaharu Morimoto) and told myself, I’ll never have seafood better than this, so I’m going to leave it on a high note.

Thus began my vegetarian phase, which was short-lived.

The digestive symptoms I had when I was a child (bloating and gas) came to an all-time, unbearable high as an adult. At random times, I’d experience heartburn, painful acid reflux, and sometimes even vomiting. They always came in the early morning hours.

After I took a food sensitivity test recommended by my naturopathic doctor, I found I was sensitive to dairy, among other things (no wonder I could never hold my alcohol!). I did a four-month cleanse of all the sensitivities, and by August 2018, I was ready to say goodbye to dairy for good.

Once I was able to eat fully plant-based, following a vegan lifestyle with other products was even easier (there are even two Canadian companies that make vegan honey!).

I started writing for the Asian millennial site Cold Tea Collective to share what I was learning about Filipino culture. I wanted to veganize more traditional Filipino dishes, and while I failed miserably at lumpia, I learned to make Adobo with seitan instead of chicken.

Many people think eliminating animal foods is restrictive, and it can be if you’re used to having beef, chicken, or pork at the centre of your meal. I’ve learned about so many more plant-based foods that exist because of my lifestyle. I loathed vegetables as a kid, but because I saw my friends eating salads and Subway sandwiches in high school, I learned to tolerate them.

I’ve learned all the different sources of plant-based protein. Where I might be low in omega-3s or iron, I supplement. Even Canada’s Food Guide promotes a plate that’s mostly fruits, vegetables, and grains. Animal proteins and dairy are optional.

I often get asked how easy or difficult it is to eat with my family now that I’ve been vegan for almost 7 years. Because I transitioned slowly over the course of 11 years, it’s not difficult—it just takes effort. When I stopped eating red meat, I ate chicken adobo and pancit. When I stopped eating meat, I ate sinigang, baked fish, and desserts containing dairy.

Now that I don’t eat any animal products, I’m responsible for bringing the staple vegetable appetizer and/or plant-based entrée, and dessert. But this is what food is about—sharing and connecting.

For a few years, there was a local company that manufactured frozen vegan lasagnas and shepherd’s pies and I LOVED bringing those to big dinners. I’d always get people looking at the lasagna and asking in disbelief, “What? That’s not meat?!”

Besides reading books and watching documentaries, one thing that helped me stay on the course was having vegan potlucks with friends. Not everyone identified as vegan around the table, but we all wanted to get together and eat vegan food.

In 2017, my sister announced her family was seriously considering moving to Nanaimo on Vancouver Island, a big change from living in Vancouver her entire life. She and I don’t live far apart, and I was already mourning the idea of not seeing her and her children.

Thinking this was going to be the last Thanksgiving dinner for our family in Vancouver, I organized a vegan Thanksgiving, complete with steamed and roasted vegetables and plant-based versions of mashed potatoes & gravy, stuffing, lasagna, and pecan & pumpkin pies. Except for an apple pie that wasn’t vegan, it was a success and showed my family how stuffed you could still be on vegan food.

I feel fortunate to live in a time when plant-based meat and dairy alternatives are in abundance. I still follow a mostly whole-food, plant-based diet during the week and save the vegan junk food for weekends. While my family may never want to do a fully vegan family meal again, they accept my lifestyle and know why I follow it.

My grandparents didn’t live long enough to see me transition to become vegan, but I like to think they’re proud of me. During my transition, my Tita “Pinky” would tell me about her extended cousin, who was a Seventh Day Adventist and adhered to a vegetarian lifestyle. When she repeated the fact again in 2020, I asked her to introduce us.

It turned out my Tita Rachel lived not even a 10-minute drive from me for the past two decades! Rachel’s grandfather was brothers with my great-grandfather, Lolo Gonzalo, my Lola Milagros’s father.

During Philippine Inventors Week in 1971, Tita Rachel’s father, Oscar Varona, was given an award by then President Ferdinand Marcos for inventing plant-based meat. He later founded the food manufacturing company Varona Foods.

My uncle, Tito David Varona, still runs the company, which is now named OscarAnn’s after his parents. It includes a store in Pasay City in Manila, Philippines.

I learned that through OscarAnn’s, Tito David and his wife, Dr. Blecenda Miranda Varona, have improved the health and wellness of over 100,000 people globally by doing talks, publishing vegetarian cookbooks, and doing community outreach ministry, which includes feeding programs for those living in poor areas.

If I hadn’t gone on a plant-based journey as an adult, I would have never learned the connection I had to my extended family.

Today, food is less about connecting with family and more with strangers and new friends. Several local vegan meetups on Meetup.com serve that purpose for both vegans and non-vegans.

I don’t crave Filipino cuisine as much, but when I do, I can order from Kulinarya, which has a decent selection of vegan options. Before one of my best friends moved to Toronto, we had Kulinarya’s Kamayan. Kamayan means “by hand” in Tagalog. A kamayan feast is a communal meal in which the food is served on banana leaves and you eat it with your hands. I took part in this food tradition for the first time in my life as a vegan!

My dishes still pale compared to the animal foods that dominate the holiday dinner tables, but I’m lucky to live in a city that not only has excellent vegan restaurants, but mostly caters to a wide variety of dietary preferences. Many Vietnamese restaurants have separate vegan menus, which is great.

My friend Crissa is a fantastic baker and made me not one, but two ube vegan cakes for my 37th birthday!

Leo stopped eating red meat in 2024. The health benefits of that elimination are apparent, even though he still eats chicken, seafood, and dairy. He said he now knows how I feel when everything on the table contains beef or pork.

Anytime I find a traditional Filipino food item like ube that’s also vegan, I silently celebrate.

Every Christmas, I give my family the same five food packs, which all contain a combination of vegan snack foods. I never get complaints, and it warms my heart when my niece and nephew immediately tear into a package.

While I might not hear the words, “I made this meal for you” often or ever, when I get a random vegan chocolate bar as a gift, I know someone thought of me.

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