I just wanted to add, MAN, VEGETARIANISM IS SERIOUS BUSINESS.
It is, especially since more and more people are turning into vegas. Personally I think that vegetarianism is the is the biggest bullshit ever. People would like to believe in this, they think that it's good for their health.
The father of my grandpa is still alive, he is 98 years old. He is still smoking cigarettes [He says he started to smoke when he was 17], and he was eating meat with meat in his whole life.
This is all about your genes. I knew someone -she was a vega, and she was never smoking at all- who died at the age of 41 because of lung cancer.
Not all vegetarians are in it for the health benefits. Some are just uneasy with the idea of eating other animals, which is fair enough so long as they're not preachy about it. Of course eating healthy is good, too.
What I find disturbing is that, particularly in America, there's this conception, supported widely throughout pop culture, that a meal can't be both good
and healthy. California, is of couse, a particular offender, but I don't think it's close to being the only one. There just seems to be this idea that veg, fresh food, anything that's not coated in salt and sugar and artificial flavourings, is 'rabbit food' or tastes bad or... something. As though a strawberry coudn't possibly taste as good as a strawberry-flavoured candy or something (mmm, strawberries). The cynical side of me suspects that this image is deliberately kept up by sellers of fast food and unhealthy crap. Britain is far from free of this attitude, too, but it is under seige- supermarkets trying to make five-a-day easier with price cuts and nutritional values printed clearly and visibly on the front of packaging, next to information on how much of everything you should be having in a day, that sort of thing.