What’s Wrong with Health Studies?

Like many vegetarians, I enjoy reading news reports about new health studies that come out. Most of these studies, of course, directly or indirectly support the vegetarian cause by showing that some aspect of eating plants is good for us, and/or some aspect of eating animal products isn't so good for us. I've come to count on these scientific findings as continuing confirmation of my good judgment to be a vegetarian.

But what about those other studies—the ones that you occasionally see that find eating meat or dairy products may be healthy? What do we do about those?

I used to think that any studies that found meat-eating to be healthy were aberrations that should be relegated to mere footnote status in the great tide of favorable literature. They must be written by people with loose scientific morals and a vested interest somewhere, I thought. Lately though, I've read some pretty troubling findings from some pretty credible sources. I've had to delve a little deeper and rethink my position.

What I've learned is that the whole system of scientific inquiry into the relationship between diet and health is hugely unfavorable to vegetarianism. More importantly, though, I've learned not to take any study results as gospel. Here's why:

• People really do have loose scientific morals and vested interests. The meat, dairy, and egg industries have the money and organization to fund a lot of research. Cantaloupe and lettuce growers don't. No matter how honest scientists try to be, their results are going to favor the people paying the bill. If you need an example, just look at our court system. "Experts" can be hired to support any position.
  
• Cause and effect relationships are difficult to establish. Whether you're doing research in the lab or conducting an epidemiological study, it's incredibly difficult to isolate the effect of just one dietary factor and study its health consequences. There are simply too many environmental and genetic variables, and too many interactions between variables to get in the way. Results from even the best-designed studies can vary widely.
  
• Animals may be lousy models for people. When you take animals in the lab and pretend they are people, you've introduced a potential for serious error right off the bat. Just last week I happened to be reading the literature on a new drug. Testing found it caused cancer in mice, but not in hamsters. Okay… so what can we do with that useful information? It should be obvious that any results based on animal testing are suspect, and should be subject to additional scrutiny.
  
• Test subjects lie. Maybe they don't intent don't intend to, but it's human nature. In any study that requires people to report on their own diets there's going to be an impetus to report things just a little healthier than they really were. (I mean, who's really going to own up to eating a whole box of Ding Dongs for dinner?) The errors are magnified when, as in many studies, people have to report on their dietary patterns in the past. Of course, this exaggeration is always going to make the results of "healthy" food choices seem a little less healthy.
  
• There aren't enough "vegetarians." It's especially difficult to do studies of vegetarians, because there often aren't enough of us to be a good sample. More importantly, we all know that people lie about their vegetarianism. (A recent Time Magazine poll found that 37% of the people calling themselves "vegetarian" had eaten red meat in the last 24 hours!) Finally, there are huge variations in vegetarian diets, and studies may not compensate for that. They may lump the raw foods folks in with the people who live on Ding Dongs. Again, the result of this is going to make "vegetarians" seem a lot more like everyone else, and a "vegetarian" diet seem a lot less healthy.
  
• There aren't any vegans. Vegans are so few in number and so misunderstood, that it is going to be a rare study indeed that will properly analyze and/or give meaningful results that apply to this group. Because of the problems cited above, results for "vegetarians" may be totally inapplicable.
  
• Since practically everyone eats meat, dietary studies often suffer from the "lesser of the evils" syndrome. For example, we've all seen lots of studies that cite the benefits of eating fishes. But if the "control" group is made up of folks who eat other kinds of flesh foods, it's hard to draw absolute conclusions. Sure, fish-eaters may be healthier than hamburger-eaters, but if fish-eaters were compared to vegetarians, the results might look entirely different.
  

  Another recent example was a study that found that, among overweight and obese adults, those who ate massive amounts of dairy products were less likely to develop insulin resistance syndrome. The conclusion, widely reported in the media, was that 5 servings a day of dairy products protects us. But how did the people who ate less dairy make up those calories? Almost certainly by eating more meat. (I doubt that any vegetarians were in their sample group.) Could the conclusion of the study just as easily have been "avoid meat at all costs—even if you have to eat lots of dairy?"
  

• Since practically everyone eats meat, results of dietary studies may not apply to vegetarians. Results from dietary studies may only apply to people with diets similar to the test group, and that rarely includes vegetarians. For example, I recently read a report raving about the benefits of fish oil (omega-3 fatty acids). The primary benefit noted was fish oil's ability to thin blood and thus prevent heart attacks and strokes. But thinner blood is only of benefit to people already sick with cardiovascular disease (i.e., most people on the Standard American Diet). For many vegetarians and vegans, and others with healthy cardiovascular systems, this blood thinning could be a health detriment rather than a benefit.
  
• There is scientific evidence out there to support everything. A librarian friend of mine once told me "doctors like to write." It's true. You can find a study out there to support almost anything you can imagine. If it isn't there yet, it's on the way. No individual study, nor the credence that someone gives to it, should be taken as definitive.
  
• People give more authority to later studies than earlier ones. While the conclusions expressed in the scientific literature may vary wildly, people tend to believe the latest news they hear. They mistakenly believe that new scientific studies override the results of those that came before. This is unfortunate indeed when poorly designed or aberrant studies conflict with what has been established in numerous previous studies.
  
• People like good news. How much press has "red wine is good for you" received? How many millions of books has Dr. Atkins sold by telling people it's healthy to eat lobsters and butter? People want to believe, and they tend to cite, studies that favor their own positions. We vegetarians are guilty of this all the time. On the other hand, since the vast majority of people in our society are addicted to animal products, any study at all hinting that meat and dairy products might somehow be good for us will receive considerably more notoriety than a study finding the opposite.
  
• The press exaggerates. (And that's an understatement!) Combine this with the fact that people like good news, and the potential for the public to be misled in favor of meat and dairy products is enormous. For example, a report on the fish oil study mentioned above, written by a registered dietician, starts off proclaiming the "good news," and ends with the pronouncement that "Including rich fish as a regular eating habit is one of the most positive steps anyone can take to protect against the development of heart disease. Best of all, it is good nutrition at its tastiest." Objective medical reporting? Hardly.
  
• Doctors still believe in what they grew up hearing and doing. Old ways die hard for most of us, and that's true for doctors and medical researchers as well. Anything that goes against what their mothers told them as children is going to be looked upon with additional skepticism. That doesn't bode well for vegetarianism. Just consider how Dr. Spock was almost drummed out of the medical community when he had the audacity to suggest that cow's milk isn't good for growing children. Consider how many doctors are happy to heed medical evidence and recommend eating more vegetables and less meat (Mom would have liked this). Consider how few are willing to heed that same medical evidence and recommend vegetarianism (Mom definitely wouldn't approve).
  

  
   

  Given all of the problems inherent in medical studies of diet and disease, it's amazing that we can learn anything at all. Yet, the fact that some results (saturated fat is bad; fiber is good, etc.) keep coming up over and over again, means that we can probably trust them and rely upon them. The best advice may be to use our common sense (if it sounds too simple or too good, ignore it) and take a big picture/long term approach. (I'm starting to sound like my stockbroker!)
  

  Considering how the odds are stacked against vegetarianism, it's equally amazing that we get any good news at all from the medical community. And yet, there they are, week after week—new scientific studies lending support to the vegetarian way of eating. No, they may not be the only things we read, but that's good enough for me. They are more than enough to make me feel confident that my decision to be a vegetarian was a good one.
  

Reflections on an Un-Turkey Thanksgiving

When I was a child, Thanksgiving was turkey day. By the time we got to my grandparents' house in the early afternoon, the smell of the roasting bird reached clear out to the car. I'd run into the house, excited, and open the oven door to see it. Despite the fact that it looked done to me, it would always take what seemed like an eternity to get everything ready to eat. My job was mashing the potatoes that would serve as the receptacle for turkey gravy. It was a simple procedure, but one entirely dependent on adding just the right amount of milk. A more complex task, left to my father and grandfather, was dissection of the great bird. I was convinced that it was a job that required not only my constant supervision, but also my occasional nibbling fingers to remove small pieces that fell by the wayside and would otherwise go to waste. When we were finally ready to eat, there would be the yearly battle between my great-grandmother and me over the parts of the turkey we liked best. She always let me win.

After the main course, I have memories of multiple pieces of pie with whipped cream and card playing on the big round table—once it was cleared. Then, later that night, and for some days thereafter, there would be turkey sandwiches, always on white bread with mayonnaise.

I look back on the Thanksgivings of my youth with mixed feelings. I remember at times I would think about the turkey as a real animal rather than just a meal. At those times, I would feel bad, wondering why this bird had to give his or her life for the sake of our supper. I would ease my conscience with the thought that Thanksgiving and turkey were synonymous—you couldn't have one without the other. Not only was turkey the whole point of Thanksgiving, but it was something that everyone, including my family, subscribed to—it must be right! But even if it wasn't, there was nothing a young boy could do about it.

I've learned a lot since then. I know now that, while it can't be denied that a certain amount of tradition has evolved around eating a turkey as the main dinner course, and while that tradition holds memories for lots of us, that doesn't make it right. Eating turkeys is not the whole point of Thanksgiving. The slaughter of a bird is no closer to the meaning of the holiday than are the Macy's parade or the football games on the majority of our television sets. There are other traditions to be had for the asking that can be just as enjoyable and even more meaningful. I also know that what matters to me now about those Thanksgivings long ago is not what we ate, but what we were—a family with an opportunity to be together, to share our support and love for one another.

While many of the family members I shared my early Thanksgivings with are now gone, in many ways the holiday itself means more to me now than it ever has. Part of the reason is that I no longer have to endure those tugs at my conscience—there is no turkey on my table. While I once felt powerless to defy tradition and change that one aspect of the holiday that bothered me, I now know that my Thanksgiving is whatever I choose to make it.

This year at our vegetarian Thanksgiving feasts we will all have a great deal to be thankful for. We'll have the opportunity to celebrate the fruits of the harvest, and to revel in the bounty that the earth provides without the necessity of taking life. There will be good food and good friends.

This year I'll have my eye on the children, and I'll admire their parents for raising them as vegetarians. Together with vegetarian families across the country they will be creating new Thanksgiving Day traditions—traditions that carry with them a message of reverence for life that can be passed from generation to generation.

Thanksgiving is a special holiday for vegetarians. This is particularly true for vegetarian children, as their Thanksgiving will have only the joy and the love—without the killing, and without knowing the guilt. What a fine Thanksgiving that is!

Expecting Too Much

When I woke up this morning Jack was sitting on my pillow. Jack is the tiny guy with the green hair and chartreuse pants who lives in the back of my head. He tries his best to keep me going in the right direction, but as you can imagine, it's often a losing cause.

"You have a column due," Jack said bluntly. "And I bet you have no idea what to write about, do you?"

I pulled the sheet over my head and moaned. "I never know what to write about. My best years of writing are behind me."

"You never had any 'best years'," he said cryptically. "But don't worry—I can help."

"Swell. In that case I'm brushing my teeth."

Jack followed me into the bathroom, suddenly excited with new ideas. "Hey, why don't you write about that long-term vegan friend of yours who took advantage of you and now isn't your friend anymore."

I shook my head. "That's a sad story about a troubled person. Nobody wants to read about that."

"But it teaches an important lesson," Jack said.

"What? That I'm an idiot?"

"More than that, it shows how we vegetarians tend to give one another the benefit of the doubt, the way the public trusts and idolizes sports heroes. But just because we're good in one thing doesn't make us perfect. Vegetarians can have big faults just like anyone else—look at you for example—and maybe we need to stop expecting too much from one another. I think that would make a fine column."

"That might make a paragraph," I countered. "What else do you have?"

"Well, speaking of expecting too much, you could write about that 'health food' grocery store that's promoting veal sales."

"I'd get sued."

"You wouldn't name them. You could just call them Wh*le F**ds, and no one would ever guess their true identity. You could talk about how, just because they sell tofu and organic lettuce, people expect them to be perfect in other ways too. People expect them to have a conscience and behave in a moral fashion, but of course they're only a big corporation and their morality is no greater or less than that of their customers. Then you could talk about how we expect too much from all of our public and governmental institutions. We expect them to lead us, rather than vice versa."

I glared at Jack. He was being way too heavy-handed for 7:00 in the morning. "What else?" I asked as I turned on the shower. "Remember, people don't like it when I get serious."

Jack thought for a moment, and then held up his miniature finger. "You could write about what your friend Sharon was telling you last week—that even as people become more health-conscious and the selection of 'healthy' foods expands rapidly, it's getting harder and harder for true vegetarians, and especially vegans, to find something to eat. People are expecting too much from the foods they buy—relying on magic words like 'organic' and 'healthy' to protect them. It's almost like 'organic' has displaced 'vegetarian'. And when people expect too much from food processors the quality of our food choices is dictated by marketing concerns and gets reduced to the lowest common denominator. 'Organic chicken' and 'organic beef' are replacing vegetarian foods in the diet, and dairy products—as long as they're 'lowfat'—are used with abandon in just about everything. You could write about what a cop-out this is, and how people need to take responsibility for their own diets, rather than expecting that anything they buy from Wh*le F**ds will be good for them."

"I don't know…" I climbed into the hot shower. "If I used the term 'cop-out' in a column, people would laugh at me."

"They laugh at you anyway." Jack bounded into the shower beside me, his tiny legs straddling the drain and the green food color dripping from his hair down into his face. "Listen," he said, hands on his hips. "I've given you three good ideas, and you don't want to use any of them? Don't you think you could string them together and come up with something that could meet your readers' usual low expectations of you?"

I thought about the idea for a second and rejected it. "Nah," I told him. "There's not a column in any of that material."

I put my face under the hot water. It felt great. Maybe if I stayed in the shower long enough a really good idea for a column would hit me. Then again, maybe I was expecting too much.

Addiction

We're a society of junkies. Ninety-nine percent of us are hooked on something bad. Something really bad. It's something so addictive, and so dangerous, that only three other things in life come close: tobacco, cocaine and Jerry Springer. What's worse, we're addicting our kids too.

That "something", of course, is meat and the other animal products we humans consume so voraciously. People just can't help themselves.

Now, I know what you're thinking. Sure, meat seems to have an unnatural hold on many folks. But isn't it a bit much to call it an "addiction"? Isn't it more of a "habit," or maybe just an unfortunate routine people have gotten themselves into? Isn't it an awfully big stretch to compare the addictive nature of meat-eating to human vices like cigarettes and drugs? And how could it ever rise to the level of Jerry Springer?! Is this perhaps just one more instance when the brain of a certain vegetarian columnist has succumbed to the effects of global warming?

Well, it is true that I've been out in the sun a lot lately. But I still think I'm right about this addiction thing. Let's take a look at some of the common behaviors we associate with addiction and see how meat-eating stacks up:

1. "I've got to have my fix! NOW!"—The vast, vast majority of people in our society eat meat, usually accompanied by significant quantities of other animal products, 2–3 times a day, every day of their lives. Need any more be said?

2. "I'm a little uncomfortable when I'm out of touch..."—People who are addicted get very uneasy about the prospect of being in a situation where they won't have access to the source of their addiction. I know this can happen with meat. I regularly taunt meat-eaters with the threat of dinner at the mythical "Tofu Palace" (shame on me!). And I'm always prepared for the peeked look I get when I suggest a restaurant with the word "green" or "natural" or "harvest" in the name. ("Gee [nervous laugh], will they have meat there?")

Consider, if you will, my experience last year when I was with a group of people planning a weekend in the mountains. The subject turned to food, and since several of us were vegetarian we offered to make vegetarian chili for Saturday night's dinner. Looking around the room I noticed some pretty uncomfortable looks on people's faces. Finally someone said, "We can make our own chili, thanks."

People turning down a free meal? People offering to cook when someone else will do it for them? There has to be some kind of powerful reason for behavior like that! Could it be addiction?

3. "…but I don't have a problem. I could give it up any time!"—Denial, of course, is the hallmark of addiction. How often do we vegetarians hear, "I've really cut back on red meat," or "I could be a vegetarian, but my husband…," or "You know, I eat very little meat." Every day, huh? (And isn't it funny that we usually hear this right after the person in question has ordered a cheeseburger?)

Now, how often do we hear "I've done it. I've given up meat completely and forever!"? Once in a month of leap years?

Does there seem to be a gap between the way people subjectively view themselves and their behavior? Is this addiction?

I'm not sure what causes this addiction to meat. I know it has cultural and "force of habit" elements, but I suspect there's a large physical component as well. Maybe while meat is clogging up people's arteries with its fat and cholesterol it's also sending out miniature secret agents to our brains with subliminal messages ("Eat me again! Soon!").

However this works, the addictive properties of meat sure make the job of promoting vegetarianism a lot more difficult. Last March I spent some time plugging the advantages of a meatless diet as part of the annual "Meat-Out Day" celebration. The message—try giving up meat for a day and see how you like it—is pretty straightforward, and no vegetarian thinks that it's asking much of meat-eaters to forego the stuff for only three out of the thousand meals they eat in a year. But the reactions that people have to this proposal are usually negative, and often not subtle at all. (Getting angry when confronted? Sounds like addition to me!)

There was one young man I spoke with (bleached-blond spiked hair, baggy shorts, tattoos, piercings, skateboard under one arm—your basic all-American kid) who seemed particularly resistant to the vegetarian message. Every time I would point out another reason not to eat meat he would get more upset. Finally, normal conversation became impossible, and I asked him what was so darned special about meat. He had turned red by this time, and he was literally bouncing up and down with nervous energy as he tried to think of something to say. "It's dope!" he finally blurted out. Then he shouted it again for emphasis: "Meat is dope, man!"

You know, I couldn't have agreed with him more.

Carnival Carnivores

As the sun sets in the western sky, the brightly colored lights of the carnival midway come up. Over the laughs and screams of the children on the Ferris wheel and the sound of the carousel in the distance, a voice can be heard.

"Step right up, folks! Step right up!"

The crowd gathers around a carnival barker dressed in a red and white-striped jacket with a straw hat. He dances a little jig and then starts his pitch.

"We've got trouble," he says, "right here in River City. With a capital 'N', and that rhymes with 'M', and that stands for Meat!"

"But 'trouble' doesn't start with 'N'!" someone cries.

"That's okay folks," the man reassures the crowd. "The point is—and thank goodness I'm here to tell you—that when you weren't looking killer meat snuck into your little town. You can smell it on your neighbor's breath, and I'll bet you dollars to donuts that little Johnny's passing it to his friends at school!"

"Oh no!" the crowd sighs.

Then someone in the back shouts, "Wait a minute... we like meat."

"Yeah," the crowd says in unison. "We like meat!"

"So you think," the man in the striped jacket says. "But wait 'til I tell you about the evils of killer meat. You, sir..." He points his cane to an overweight man at the front of the crowd. "You suffer from gout, do you not?"

"Oh yes!" shouts the man. "It's terribly painful."

"Wouldn't it be worth giving up meat to get rid of that pain?"

"No," the man says without a pause.

"No?"

"No way."

"How about if it would make you thin besides?"

The man shakes his head and snarls. "Still not worth it."

"How about if it would prevent that heart attack you're going to have next year?"

The man is angry now. He turns and stomps away through the crowd.

The carnival barker looks frustrated. "You," he says, pointing the cane at a college student. "You're an environmentalist."

"You bet I am," the young woman says proudly. "I even recycle toilet paper."

"Well then, certainly you'll give up eating killer meat once you learn that animal agriculture is our biggest consumer and polluter of water."

The woman considers this for a second and then shakes her head. "Sorry, I'm not that much of an environmentalist."

The carnival barker pushes his hat back and scratches his ear. The crowd is growing restless, and beads of sweat have formed on his forehead.

"How about you ma'am," he pleads to a woman standing with her arms around her little boy. "Your heart has always gone out to every animal in distress you've come across. Wouldn't you give up meat to save the billions of innocent creatures mistreated and killed in our slaughterhouses?"

"Well, I don't know..."

"Wouldn't you take meat off your family's table to protect the innocence and health of your little boy?"

"I..."

At that moment a man in a cow suit appears. He's wearing a sandwich sign that reads: "Come eat at Jack's Burgers and Shakes—Conveniently located next to the fat lady's tent."

"Can we go get a burger?" the young boy asks excitedly. "They've got a real clown and a playground and everything!"

The woman gives a helpless smile to the carnival barker and hurries her son away.

"Don't go! Please don't go!" the barker calls after her, but by this time the crowd has lost its patience.

"He's just a huckster!" someone shouts.

"He's a charlatan!" someone else screams.

"Yeah, send him back to Charlotte!"

The angry crowd starts to close in around the man, and he holds up his cane in self-defense. "Hey, wait a minute!" he shouts. "I'm only trying to help you!" A tomato flies out of the crowd and hits him on the side of his face, knocking his hat off. Suddenly he realizes it's no use, and he takes a step back, frightened.

The crowd starts chanting, "Give us milk, and give us meat. Those are things we love to eat! We want burgers, we want shakes. We'll eat whatever the animal makes!" Then, as a group, they turn and march off in the direction of Jack's.

The barker lets out a sigh of relief, thankful that the only damage was done by one tomato. Someone comes up by his side, and he sees that it's the carnival owner, a grizzled old man with a Western tie and a frayed vest, a cigarette dangling from his lower lip.

"That was a close one," the old man says.

"I'll say. What did I do wrong?"

The old man shakes his head and toes the dirt with his boot. "You know, I've been in the carny business for forty years now, and I've found that everywhere I go people are all pretty much the same. You can get them to fall for the cheapest illusion, just as long as it's what they want to believe. But if it's something they don't like, well… they'll fight the truth tooth and nail."

With that the old man puts a comforting hand on the barker's shoulder. "You'll have better luck next time," he says.

Neither of them really believe it, though. After all, this is the world of the carnival. The midway is filled with jingling coins, the laughs and screams of children, and the bright lights of the Ferris wheel. Everyone watches as it goes around and around in the blackened sky.

A Dinner With Friends

Many years ago when I became a vegetarian (this was during the Coolidge administration) there was only one reason for my decision—wanting to be nice to animals. That was all that really mattered to me.

Sure, even back then people knew that vegetarianism was a lot healthier than eating meat, even if we didn't have the benefit of knowing all about saturated fat and antioxidants, not to mention Dave Thomas' heart attack. I knew that giving up meat was good for me, and I figured it was kind of a bonus I got for eating ethically—sort of like extra points for being a nice guy. But it really didn't make much difference. I was young then and, just like everyone else my age, I figured I'd live forever.

My diet reflected this general level of stupidity. When I gave up meat I moved into dairy products with abandon. I'd think nothing of following a Fettuccine Alfredo dinner with cheesecake for dessert. My favorite lunch was American cheese on white bread, "grilled" in the microwave. I knew that omelets, and even ice cream, had to be good for me because, what the heck, all those ads plugging milk and eggs as high protein health foods couldn't be wrong.

Well, it's the sophisticated '90s now. Mr. Coolidge is no longer president, and things seemed to have changed. Yes, I'm still a vegetarian for ethical reasons, and my diet still has nutritional holes in it big enough to drive a Mack truck through. But it's a better diet than it used to be. And somehow that matters more to me now.

There's a certain wisdom that comes with middle age. Okay, maybe a better term for it is "crisis mentality." In any event, when we reach that status in life it inevitably hits us that we're not going to play center field for the Yankees, Hollywood is never going to come calling, and oh, by the way, our bodies are slowly disintegrating before our very eyes.

I'm awfully glad to have vegetarianism along to help me through this crisis. It won't make me live forever, and may not even see me through to old age, but I know now that I'm a lot healthier than I would have been if I hadn't given up meat, and then dairy products, in the foggy, distant past. And the difference is going to become more pronounced as time goes on.

All of this was brought home to me recently when I went out to a restaurant with a group of my meat-eating friends after a concert. I looked around the table and realized that they were eating just like I once did, and it wasn't doing any good for their middle-aged bodies.

Hamburgers were the food of choice that night. As I watched my friend Bill eat his, I noticed that the paunch of his stomach was getting larger every time I saw him. Coincidence, I wondered? In the chair next to him Pat was still looking trim as she downed her burger, but she was talking about her high cholesterol level.

Cholesterol was an even bigger problem for Bill #2, sitting across from them. His blood-cholesterol level was seriously high, and he was due to go in for another test the next day. As he finished his burger, though, he noted that it had come down since he'd "improved" his diet.

My friend Kevin was sitting on my right. "I can't eat burgers anymore," he complained. "My colon can't handle them." He ordered the chef salad instead. As I watched him eat the cheese and eggs and various meats with the creamy dressing, I wondered if there was any lettuce under there. I didn't see any.

Susanna wasn't eating a burger that night either. "I eat very little beef," she said proudly as she took a bite of her club sandwich of turkey, "ham" and "bacon" on white bread with mayonnaise. Very healthy indeed.

Across the table was Jim. He'd gone through bypass surgery a year earlier, and for a while his diet had changed. But now he was biting into a hamburger. "Ah," he said, a big smile coming to his face. "There's nothing like the taste of a burger."

Finally there was Lori, sitting on my left. A delightful but shy woman, she had health problems that required her to always be on oxygen, and she'd recently been diagnosed with breast cancer. "I really need meat protein," she said twice—once to convince herself, and then again to me. "Will you be offended if I order a burger?"

She looked at me with pleading brown eyes and a face that was too thin and tired, the oxygen tube running up to her nose. My heart was breaking. I wanted to tell her about the link between animal fat and cancer. I wanted to get her started on the right track by cooking her a good vegetarian dinner of green vegetables and grains. I wanted to be able to hug her and sincerely tell her everything was going to be all right. But I knew I couldn't do any of those things. A lifetime of habit and bad information are hard to undo, even though I'd been trying for years with all my friends.

"No Lori," I finally said, feeling helpless but smiling so she'd feel at ease. "I won't be offended if you order a burger."

I lied, of course. When meat starts hurting my friends I'm plenty offended.

The Image of Sacrifice

How many times have you heard comments like these?

"I don't think I could be a vegetarian. I just really enjoy a good hamburger once in a while."

"I think I could probably give up red-meat, but I don't think I could totally cut out chicken and fish."

"You're a vegetarian? What do you eat?"

I hear these comments all the time. And when I really think about them, they point out what may be the single factor holding back the vegetarian movement: the image of sacrifice. Simply put, the public at large sees vegetarianism as entailing major sacrifices. And until the perceived personal benefits of being a vegetarian outweigh those perceived sacrifices, the public will go right on eating meat.

Take, for example, the question of "what do you eat?" I bet most vegetarians don't have a ready answer that sounds at all appetizing to a meat eater. When I'm asked the question, I usually give some vague response that conveys no information at all if I'm lucky, and gives the totally wrong impression if I'm not. The fact is most meat eaters have no idea what vegetarians eat to stay alive. They usually associate vegetarians with "weird" foods like sprouts and (God help us!) tofu.

"Let me get this straight," the meat-eater thinks to himself after you've tried to explain your vegetarian diet. "In order to be a vegetarian I have to give up that juicy T-bone steak hot off the grill. But instead I can eat 'tofu'—that sickly white stuff floating in murky liquid I once saw in the back of a grocery store and gagged at the sight of." To many meat-eaters, starvation sounds better. In fact, to many meat-eaters, starvation on a vegetarian diet sounds like a real possibility.

"If I make this supreme sacrifice, what do I get out of it?" the meat-eater asks. Again, the average vegetarian (myself included) will respond with some esoteric answer about cholesterol and toxins in meat. He'll probably continue for ten minutes more with a rationalization of how, if the meat-eater is careful, he can replace all the protein he's given up by doing without meat in the first place.

"Let me get this straight," the meat-eater thinks. "To be a vegetarian I have to give up the steak I love and replace it with a piece of awful-tasting rubbery tofu. But you're telling me it's all worth it because, if I don't starve to death in the meantime, I'm going to feel better when I'm 85."

This example may seem to be an exaggeration, but it's not much of one. Most people realize there are some advantages to being a vegetarian, but the perceived sacrifice of that kind of diet change is so overwhelming that vegetarianism is never seriously considered.

How do we change all this? Quite simply, we have to dispel the image of sacrifice. When I gave up meat, there was no sacrifice involved. I thought there would be because I really liked the taste of meat. But to my surprise it turned out to be no problem at all. I found that most of the flavors I enjoyed and associated with meat really weren't in the meat at all, but merely on top of it. I could still enjoy them. And by being liberated from a meat-at-every-meal regimen, I had both the opportunity and the motivation to try a whole variety of new foods and flavors I would never have been exposed to had I not become a vegetarian. I liked my new diet from the start. I even liked tofu. And it didn't take long before I'd come full circle, and the thought of eating meat started to seem pretty darned revolting.

Maybe my experience is unusual, but I don't think so. I'd be willing to bet that there are literally millions of other converted vegetarians out there who feel the same way I do. We haven't made any sacrifices for vegetarianism—we love it!

Maybe the appropriate response when someone asks you what you eat is: "Anything I want to!" Vegetarianism isn't a sacrifice—it's fun. As soon as people find that out, they'll want to join us. Let's tell the world!

“Almost a Vegetarian”

[Note: This was one of the very first On or Off the Mark columns—obviously and embarrassingly from my pre-vegan days!]

The “almost” vegetarians—I seem to meet them everywhere. For example the scene might go something like this:
I’m out to lunch with a new business acquaintance, and in the process of ordering it becomes obvious that I’m a vegetarian. (“I’ll have a ham and cheese on rye, hold the ham.”) When the waitress is gone my lunch companion says: “So you’re a vegetarian?”
“Yes,” I reply.
“ Do you feel better?” he asks, as if I’d only given up meat two days ago.
“Yeah, I think so,” I answer. I’m trying to remember how I felt 10 years ago.
It’s then that he hits me with the all-too-familiar line: “I’m almost a vegetarian myself,” he says.
“No kidding!” I try to feign surprise. “Boy, that’s great!”
“Yeah,” he says. “My wife and I hardly even eat meat. Mostly just chicken and fish.” Then he suddenly remembers the roast beef sandwich he ordered for lunch. “When I’m out is about the only time I ever eat meat. Yeah, I’m pretty much a vegetarian.”
“Do you feel better?” I ask.
This scene, or some variant thereof, repeats itself at least once a week. A good 75% of the people who discover I’m a vegetarian volunteer that they are “almost vegetarians” themselves. If half of the people who claimed to be vegetarians really were, the meat industry would be begging for our mercy.
I always have to suppress a smile when I find a new “almost” vegetarian and talk to him about his “vegetarian” diet of chicken and fish. There is a lot the general public has to learn about vegetarianism.
But the point of this article is not to make fun of “almost” vegetarians, but to thank them. They represent the mainstream of America, and they are showing themselves to be ever more tolerant of vegetarianism. Perhaps they sometimes still think of it as a health fad, but they accept it nonetheless. And instead of regarding vegetarians as a lunatic fringe, we are a group they want to be identified with.
The end result of all of this has to be good. Good for vegetarianism, and good for the country. Vegetarianism has no absolutes, and any change for the better should be appreciated. People really are becoming more conscientious about their diets. Chicken and fish today—maybe tofu tomorrow.
That’s something I feel better about, don’t you?