What do Buddhist monks eat?
THE STANDARD rule of diet is vegan, so they eat very pure, clean foods that were not a by-product of animals. They don’t eat any animal meats, sea creatures, air and land creatures. That’s the original prescription of the buddha’s instructions to the monastics. In our day and age, we can’t avoid the most minute traces of animal by-products because you can’t always tell unless you do super thorough research on the chemicals and other artificial ingredients and what companies use in their artificial ingredients and mixes. In those kinds of cases, the monastics just rely on the pure vegan, organic foods, and if it’s vegetarian to their understanding and knowledge, it’s fine. They eat what they get, first of all. And in the case of what the monastery chooses to cook, they choose the vegan foods. No cheating.