I am trying to find people in CH who share my passion for healthy vegetarian food.
I do believe in the body-mind-spirit unity and hence working on the latter two think we should not be avoiding the first one.
I did some check in several stores in ZH when I visited 2 months ago and was quite disappointed by the scarce choices of foods I would consider healthy.
For example, there are only 1 or 2 soy milk products. No fortification. Made in China (read GMO/pecticides/...). I checked 3 Asian markets - even basic items as seaweed, pickles, dals are either missing or of questionable quality.

I understand Swiss survives on milk, meat and chocolate.
But is it impossible to find hemp products, tempeh, quinoa (I had some in Tibits, so it must be available somewhere), amaranth, dals?

Please, share vegetraian groups/sources that you might have used!
Thanks!

eVEGeny

I am a veggie as well but married so not sure if I can do the unite part with you Hemp you can forget here unless you want to smoke it. You get Hemp oil though.

As my contribution to the thread I will recommend "Quinoa".

Ezveny, I was a vegetarian for many years and then tried it again last year but only lasted about four months. A real shame as I would really prefer to live my life without eating any meat. I do eat mostly vegetarian and have some really great recipes to share if you are interested. I'm what you call a "chicken breast vegetarian". LOL. I eat mostly veggies but can't say no to chicken breast once in a while. I don't eat any red meat or fish.

I've had a really hard time finding Bio soy milk also. I have to go to one specific health food store, which is not accessible by car. They actually have a pretty good selection of vegetarian and organic foods as well, but nothing like what we had in the US when we were still living there.

Philip Day offers some of the things you might be looking for online: http://www.vitalminerals.org/zen/ind...10bcafd515bc38 They ship to most countries in the world.

Devil, I would have never pegged you for a vegetarian. You are just full of surprises!

hi there

i am a vegetarian as well and i like to cook from scratch. i recently learnt about quiona in a ayurvedic cooking course i visited. i loved it and found out that you can buy it in a drogrie almost anywhere. hope you get it. dals n rice you can find in the indian n chinese stores. last week i found brown basmati rice in one of the indian stores, have`nt cooked it yet but it looks good. will let you know how it turned out. another thing which i like to cook is bulgur from the turkish stores. have a try.
cheers
pink pompom

The Swiss don't survive on milk, meat and chocolate. There is a good variety of stores here that do cater for vegetarian diets, Vatter in Bern for example, I have found tempeh and quinoa and amaranth in shops here, and dals are easy to find in any Indian store. As a vegetarian, I have never actually had problems finding things to eat here.
I suppose that since you only visited Switzerland you didn't really have the time to check out the local stores at your leisure. Perhaps on your next trip you might have more time.

Same here.

I'm vegetarian as well, and my roomie is Vegan, I find it very frustrating the limited about of veggie products here (still hunting Tempeh) but you can find things just go to the health stores.

I will put this in though my roomie as no problem with her vegan diet and finding things here, but she has never been exposed to the vast choice, available elsewhere.

I've been vegetarian for about a decade, and been living here six years now. While over these past six years it has become easier to find vegetarian selections here, I've always had trouble. Even getting tofu can sometimes be frustrating to find - and specialty stores are expensive.

Still haven't managed to find tempeh in Basel....

Migros has tons of Tofu. Never had problem getting tofu.

My local Migros doesn't sell it. I end up going to Germany to a grocery store there or to the chinese shop. The Migros near me sells a few of the fake meat things, but not just tofu blocks.

I get tofu from my local asian store, i have bought tofu from co-op but it was yellow in colour and not as nice

The tofu mini block and soya tube thing will be in the cheese section of Migros normally. The fake meat/Quorn stuff is far away from Tofu in the meat section.

Where did you get that information from??? Try comparing statistics from Switzerland (or "Swiss" as you refer to it) to your home country; look out for obesity rates, life expectancy, disease, etc., and you will see that Switzerland has a pretty healthy lifestyle by comparison.

The health stores here they are very good but some are better than others so you have to check out a few of them. One thing though they are not always good on keeping products in stock so you should ask. I always buy organic quinoa spaghetti with parsley - one of my favourites, I make it with tomato sauce and red spilt lentils. I have bought amaranth here too.There's a Muller health store in Renweg central Zürich and a good one in the Glatt Zentrum - if they don't have what you they can order it for you.

As for Tempeh, have you tried to reach http://www.pasar-indonesia.ch/shop.htm ? They might be supplying to someone close to you.

Or:

http://www.buch.ch/shop/home/artikel...ID4267700.html


This site might also be useful for new arrivals:

http://www.vegetarismus.ch/rezepte/alternativen.htm

Thank you all for the postings!
I spent 3 days in Zürich checking specifically the stores. Visited 3 of the Aisan ones (primarily East Asian). Checked 2 farmer's market, the supermarket chains, a Health food store and some Middle Eastern stores.
Yes, there is tofu in Migros/Coop. I guess I am just spoiled by my current choices :-)
I've been reading more about the hemp availability in CH - the one that is not for smoking :-) - that one was in the news last week.

I will check the links on tempeh etc. - I am quite hopeful now :-)

Thanks again! I hope to stay in touch with you in the future!

to Sandgrounder

The conclusions are based on the Swiss cooking books I have, my 4 years of visiting the country and its restaurants, shops and cafes. And of course - I was joking.
(BTW, I was using "swiss" as the people in the country - not the country itself (check again my post :-)

I do live in USA, but it is not my home country. And though I do not like the Mac-eating culture here, it is hard to deny the options the huge food market has to offer. Unfortunately, it will be hard to have a chain like Whole Foods, for example, in a country the size of CH (and that far away from Mexico :-)

My home country is actually in Europe - one of the slimmest people there :-)
Or at least - used to be :-)

Quinoa rules!

Hello! I am a new arrival from NZ, vegetarian for 3 years and then vegan for the last 5. I'm definitely interested infinding some of these Asian & health food stores you guys are talking about in Zürich. Any recommendations most welcome!! I would love to make a vegetarian friend here so feel free to PM me. I feel a little overwhelmed since I've just arrived!

vegetarian= old indian word for 'bad hunter'