Vegetarian or vegan?

Vegetarian or Vegan? Subject for discussion.
When our family sat down to Easter dinner our 40 year old son surprised us by saying “Ham? I don’t eat ham”. He went on to say that hogs are the most “sentient” of animals, that is, “experiencing feeling or sensation”. “The living knew themselves as just sentient puppets on God’s stage” is a dictionary quote from T.E. Lawrence.
This was a new one for me. When we lived in England we usually cooked vegetarian style when we cooked for seminars because in any group of 20, there would always be 2 or 3 vegetarians. We also had 4 vegetarians and one vegan living in our household so we had lots of discussions. The reasons were “Oh, those poor animals”, or, because of the inefficiency of conversion of plant protein to animal protein in a world of more and more limited resources. No one there cited health reasons for their choice.
However, when we returned to rural America we discovered 5, yes 5 of our friends had read the book called THE CHINA STUDY by T. Colin Campbell and had become not just vegetarian but vegan! An article this week in the New York Times seems to confirm the wisdom of not eating red meat at least. What’s going on here?
Long ago Lois and I reduced our meat intake mainly because of cost. I could easily be a vegetarian I believe, but I’d have a difficult time doing without milk on my cereal (soy milk doesn’t do it for me), butter on my toast, or cheese with my crackers and wine. Our vegan friends do admit that it takes more planning to prepare meals from only plant derived materials. But the evidence is in – people who consume the most red meat and processed meat are likely to die sooner than people who consume much smaller amounts of these foods (NYT 4/28/09).
So I suffer from The Omnivore’s Dilemma (which is the title of a book by Michael Pollan that I recommend). When I dig into a steak or pork chop I may say “I’m supporting my farmer friends”, but am I slowly killing myself? Nowadays,if we have meat with a meal, it is usually chicken or fish; a steak or pork chop is a special treat. But is even that too much? The big push now is to “buy locally” (in other words, become a “locotarian!”) which is easy to do in a rural farming community. That may partially solve the use of resources issue, but still leaves the health issue open.
What would the farmers do if we all became vegetarians? I suggest they plant vineyards!
We have a guest coming over for supper. What’s on the menu? Lois said it’s called “spinach and mushroom puff pastry plait”. It’s quite good, actually. No meat!
So, class of ’60, what are you? Vegan, vegetarian, “meatetarian” or some combination. Why have you made the choice you made? Let’s get some discussion going on this blog.