I became a vegetarian when I was 20 years old (I'm 46 now) because I was learning meditation from an Indian guru who strongly suggested it. I tried it for three months and then ate meat again for a couple of weeks for the comparison. I found that I felt a lot better if I didn't eat meat, so it was an easy choice. It also cut my food budget by about 25 per cent. Since I was a poor college student that was a big inducement. I have since added geo-political, ecological, and cruelty to animals reasons for avoiding meat. And no, my shoes are not made of leather. I love tofu, but I had to learn to use it properly first. I still can't stand brussel spouts.

McDonald's cooks their chips in vegetable oil, but they add some beef juice to the things before they freeze them and ship them off to the restaurants. There is a lawyer here in Seattle who is starting a class-action law suit against them because they were being purposefuly deceptive about the ingredients and because the folks working in the restaurants were cheerfully telling customers the fries were completely vegetarian.

John