RAWALPINDI: Digital rights activist Usama Khilji has been vegan since 2013, joining a global movement of people who eat a diet that is entirely plant based, eschewing even the eggs and milk of traditional vegetarianism.

Though the Islamabad-based lawyer personally says it wasn’t hard for him to make the switch, he, like others, said it would be a long time before there was wider social and cultural acceptance of going vegan in meat-loving Pakistan.

Pakistan’s per capita meat consumption in 2000 was 11.7 kg, which rose to over 47 kg by 2020.

But the number of environmentally conscious eaters seeking vegetable substitutes is also growing, slowly but surely. 

“I am from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa,” Khilji said, referring to a northwestern province known for its salted meat dishes. “So when I visit there, I pretend like I have a kidney problem, and say doctors have disallowed me from eating meat!” 

Sometimes when pushed, Khilji says, he has “pretended to eat meat as a guest so as to not offend hosts.”

“In our culture, meat is considered to be special food served for guests,” he added. 

Indeed, many Pakistanis also still view eating meat as a status symbol, few major restaurants offer vegan options, and dinner guests are often served meat dishes, even in poor households. The switch from omnivore to herbivore is also made all the more harder by harsh words and eye-rolling from unsympathetic friends and family members.

“The difficult part of transitioning to veganism in Pakistan is the whole social aspect of it ... because you get questioned everywhere,” digital marketer Athar Ali Khan told Arab News in a phone interview.

“People can get uncomfortable and very aggressive because they double down on what they believe to be true when it comes to meat consumption, like it’s the only source for protein, or milk is the best way for you to get calcium.”

“At Karachi airport, I ordered a vegetable sandwich and was told by the waiter they did not have one on the menu, but they could make me one,” Athar said. “I took my first bite and there was chicken in it! I had to spit it out and asked him why he did that. He said ‘but we put all the vegetables in it.’”

Few Pakistanis can distinguish between veganism and vegetarianism and a number of Pakistani vegans answered a Twitter prompt by Arab News saying they were often asked if they were Indian when they professed to be vegan. India has long been touted as the vegetarian capital of the world.

Sundus Sheikh, a financial analyst, shared a funny encounter she had while visiting Pakistan from the United States five years ago.

“I went to a small restaurant in Sialkot and asked if they had any vegan dishes on the menu and the guy went, ‘no but the border [to cross into India] is not too far from here,’” she told Arab News over Twitter.

Sheikh says since moving from the United States to Pakistan, she has found it difficult to remain a vegan, though she still tries to eat a primarily plant-based diet.

“I was telling the waiter very strictly I don't eat meat, make sure there's nothing on the salad because otherwise I'll have to send it back,” Shandana Mufti, who runs Vegan Eats in Islamabad, told Arab News over the phone. “The waiter turns to me, ‘What? Not even chicken or beef?’ and I just started laughing."

Mufti, a vegan for eight years, makes vegan ice creams, bread, burger patties and other items that are a staple at the capital city’s farmers markets.

“Vegan customers are less than 10% of my regulars, but it doesn't really matter because every time somebody buys a box of my vegan ice cream, that's one box of non-vegan ice cream that they're not buying and that's a really good thing,” Mufti said.

“People are paying premium prices for vegan foods, which is something I never thought I'd see in Islamabad. I'm so proud to see it happening now.”