One of the reasons I decided to do the vegetarian thing earlier this year was concern about my expanding waistline and the difficulty I was having controlling my weight. I must tell you that as a result of this, and with walking as my only exercise, I have lost 20 lbs and kept it off.

But that was not the only reason. When my father died he had prostate cancer. Then about a year ago my brother (who, ironically, lives in Alberta) was also diagnosed with it, thankfully at a stage where it could be cured. The interesting thing though was what his oncologist told him. He was told that his nutrition was going to be the key to preventing a recurrence and gave him a book to read that, in short, recommended eliminating red meat from his diet, eating only organically raised poultry (i.e. poultry free of hormones and antibiotics), grains, fruit and vegetables. I have heard the same thing from women who are breast cancer survivors. So that got me thinking the obvious question: why should we wait until we get cancer to eat properly ??

Piper is correct, you cannot get up one morning and just turn your back on meat like that. I tried that and was not only hungry all the time but the food was boring too. This is a gradual thing. Also, a lot of people think that a vegetarian diet means so so salad morning, noon and night. Well the first thing is that I eat poultry and fresh fish -occasionally if I know where it is coming from. If I am not in the country in Jamaica as Anne J said, and killing a fowl in the back yard, buying in the market or at the seaside from the fisherman, then I prefer local stuff from a farmers market around here. We have been "organic" in Jamaica from weh day, so when I am home, different rules apply. Speaking of killing fowl in a backyard. How many of you have ever placed a zinc pan over a fowl with only the head peeping out and chop it off ??? When he blood spurts all over and you can hear the body a flatter flatter inside until there is silence. Then you have to go drain it, pick the feather, clean out the inside etc. etc. Not to mention set aside the foot for soup. Man, that's country living !!!

Anne J, you asked what I eat on a regular day. In the morning I generally have a plate of fruit, a whole grain muffin or a bagel and coffee. At lunch I generally go with a small salad and soup. I like to make my own so generally bring it. Sometimes we stock up on veggie patties and freeze them and I just bring those and have it with one of those Yoplait smoothies. For dinner, Wifey and I do eat a lot of salads. But thats not all. One of the best ways to broaden the appeal of a vegetarian diet I have found is eating out and seeing what other cultures do with it. Thai, Indian and Mexican restaurants for example generally have very nice vegetarian food that is simple to fix at home. So I do a lot of curries, can make a mean roti, cook Asian stir fries and am reasonably good with quesadillas. When you use refried beans and cheese you really dont miss the meat in them. Now these ethnic foods can be time intensive so during the week when we are tired of the green bush, we have a lot of pasta dishes too.

Dine, you asked about Thanksgiving. Well, we had pumpkin soup, rice and peas (no bacon in it), curry shrimp, macaroni and cheese ( again, from scratch and no bacon), the rahtid turkey for those who wanted it, bread pudding, sorrel, Red Stripe and Appelton XV. I really dont like tofu. I have found that mushrooms are a much better meat substitute. Some of them like Portobello can be grilled, roasted and fried . And if properly seasoned and you close your eyes, you cant always tell that you are not eating meat.

By the way, if you are comforted by all the reassurances that the US Govt. and the cattle industry is putting out about the safety of the US beef supply, how they will no longer slaughter downer cows, that there is a ban on animal byproducts in the feed and so on, check this out:

www.csmonitor.com/2003/04...-wmcn.html