As the discussion on JU revolves increasingly around food, I thought it interesting to add my little piece. We have a couple vegetarians around here who have discussed their food choices. While I respect everyone's different preferences, I've come to realize a fair amount about diets over the years.

I am a "semi-vegetarian"; which pretty much makes me the Rodney Dangerfield of eating habits. Traditional meat and potatoes folks can't comprehend why I eschew all but the occasional offering of red meat (especially in north Texas where the steer is king!), and vegetarians can't comprehend why I'm not a full fledged vegetarian.

The answers to both are quite simple, actually. See, I don't have a problem with meat on any sort of moral conviction, but rather from a more healthy and gobal mindset. I learned years ago (from the revised edition of the book "Diet for a Small Planet") that the earth actually has more than ample resources to support the population of the planet if only we would steward our resources wisely. This means making wise choices in all of our consumer based decisions. For instance, we attempt to buy food in bulk because most bulk items use less packaging per unit than smaller quantities, and most packaging is not biodegradable and thus a candidate for our compost pile. We attempt to cook our meat and vegetable dishes separately because the uneaten portion of the vegetable dishes can be contributed to the compost pile. Both of these decisions are made because of the consideration that less garbage on our part means less of a contribution to the landfill.

In diet, this means that we eat low on the food chain. It's common sense, really, that it would require less resources to eat plants than it does an animal that CONSUMES plants, but we really don't think much of our individual impact on the environment. Poultry and fish require less resources than cattle, and, additionally can be raised on your own property if you strive for any sort of self sufficiency.

But even knowing this, we must understand how to use these vegetables properly for different reasons. Many vegetarian/vegan products rely on soy as their base. While soy has many positive nutritional benefits, as the father of four girls, the phyto (plant) estrogens in soy have me concerned about the potential for overuse, in light of possible complications with the girls' reproductive systems as they get older. With that understanding, our use of soy is often balanced (I use lentils frequently for "meat" dishes; we make lentil tacos, simply substituting cooked lentils for the ground beef, and I make a lentil "meatloaf" that I have been making since LONG before the commercial product using same was available, I also have a lentil "egg salad" that goes wonderfully in pita bread with some alfalfa sprouts for picnics....but I digress). As to the myth that it costs more to eat a vegetarian diet, I have found that the amount you save by NOT buying meat cancels out the additional cost for organic foods and calculating for loss due to spoilage from a shorter shelf life.

Knowing all of these things, we challenge ourselves to at least two vegetarian dinners per week, and rarely do we have red meat on hand. Vegetarian cooking requires forethought and planning to produce a variety of healthy, attractive meals (as well as a knowledge of how to combine vegetable proteins to get complete proteins, as no one vegetable source contains all of the essential proteins), but once you're acquainted with th variety of foods out there, it isn't so tough. And it's pretty cool to serve a vegetarian dish to a dedicated meat eater and have it pass muster. I personally have a vegetarian mushroom stroganoff (note to Mason: I DO have vegan substitutions, if you want the recipe) that does the trick for a lot of folks. But, see, I love a good steak. And I love Indian curry dishes, especially chicken (although for the vegan, it's also very good if you use tofu for the "meat"). So, while I tip my hat to those who ARE fully vegetarian or vegan, I won't be joining you anytime soon. lol.