So You'd Like To Become A Vegetarian?

[mahayana]

friends- you have raised a few more issues about vegetarians. I will try to hit them all briefly.

first, I'm holding my beat-up copy of Frances Moore Lappe's "Diet For A Small Planet."(1971, Ballantine Books) You can probably find a copy in your public library. This is one of the original vegan bibles, it explains how to get the eight amino acids that must come from outside our bodies, without eating meat.

This book is subtitled "getting off the top of the food chain", and about half of the book is devoted to complementary protein recipes. A part of the vegan philosophy is that it is wasteful of farm resources to use land to produce grain to feed livestock, then eat the livestock, when we could simply eat the grain.

Please read this book, if you can find it.

Vegans are the "strictest" of vegetarians; they choose to eat no animal products or fish. The argument against eggs is that, if fertilized they are really chickens, if not they are the product of the layer-house, which kills most of the males. Dairy herds also sell off the bulls, and non-productive cows, to the meat industry.
Of course, fishes are a kind of animal.

My oldest son was born in Summertown TN, at "the Farm", the nation's largest vegan community.

Most vegetarians are not vegans, or strict, or perfect, hah!