THE RARER STEAK -- A CONSUMING INTEREST STEERS MORE PEOPLE FROM MEAT TO VEGETARIANISM

By Jill Schensul, Record Staff Writer
Date: 03-19-1991, Tuesday
Section: LIFESTYLE
Edition: All Editions -- Four Star B, Three Star P, Two Star, One Star

Vegetarian entrees are becoming the new food on college campuses.
Famous people are extolling the virtues of a no-meat lifestyle. Tofu's
in all the supermarkets (though many people still don't know what it is
-- a curd made from soybeans). United Airlines offers a vegetarian French
toast with tofu instead of eggs. There are 350 more vegetarian
restaurants than there were 10 years ago. The mayor of Aspen feeds his
dogs vegetarian dog food.

Vegetarianism is not just for hippies anymore.

An estimate in "The Animal Rights Handbook" puts the number of
vegetarians at 15 million, up from 9 million in 1982. Numbers are
unreliable, though, because many people call themselves vegetarian even
though they eat fish or even chicken. Vegetarians eat no animal flesh;
vegans eat no animal products, including dairy items and eggs.

Still, evidence suggests vegetarianism is becoming more widespread,
said Alex Hershaft, executive director of Farm Animal Reform Movement
(FARM), a national public-interest organization formed in 1981 to focus
attention on the deleterious effects of factory farming practices on
consumer health, natural resources, and animal welfare. Subscriptions to
Vegetarian Times are up to 180,000, from 150,000 four years ago. Diet
and vegetarian books are "booming" as a category, said Donna
Passannante, spokeswoman for Barnes & Noble/B Dalton Booksellers.

Hershaft also notes that events planned for the Great American
Meatout, sponsored by FARM (the seventh annual celebration is
Wednesday), have doubled every year since it began. The Meatout, created
to encourage people to reconsider a meat-based diet and cut meat
consumption, this year will include 700 activities nationwide, from a
vegetarian dinner for 200 members of Congress to protests at
slaughterhouses and free vegetarian meals for the homeless.

Vegetarianism is becoming more popular for several reasons: health,
animal rights, and the environment. Vegetarian Times surveyed its
readers and found that two-thirds of them were most concerned about
animal rights. The survey also found that 84 percent of vegetarians have
attended college, and nearly 1 in 5 have pursued postgraduate studies.
Twenty-five percent of vegetarians are men.

"Vegetarians are now firemen, lawyers, bank presidents,
celebrities," adds Robin Walker, vegetarian campaign coordinator for
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA).

Walker says two-thirds of the world's population is vegetarian or
nearly so. Mahatma Gandhi was a vegetarian, as were Albert Schweitzer,
Charles Darwin, Henry David Thoreau, and Leonardo da Vinci. Told by
doctors that he would perish if he didn't eat meat, George Bernard Shaw
(who wrote a vegetarian cookbook) responded: "My hearse will be followed
not by mourning coaches but by herds of oxen, sheep, swine, flocks of
poultry, and a small traveling aquarium of live fish, all wearing white
scarves in honor of the man who perished rather than eat his fellow
creatures." Albert Einstein predicted that "Nothing will benefit human
health and increase the chances for survival on earth as the evolution
to a vegetarian diet."

Today's list of luminaries speaking out for a no-meat way include
cartoonist Berke Breathed, William Shatner, Oakland Athletics manager
Tony LaRussa, Mr. Rogers, Isaac Bashevis Singer, and rock stars too
numerous to mention. Even Daniel Antonovich, one of the first of the
mass-market furriers, and Jeff Giuliano, the first actor to play Ronald
McDonald, are vegetarians, according to Vegetarian Times. Lindsay Wagner
and Linda McCartney have published vegetarian cookbooks; McCartney and
her husband, Paul, have been vegetarians for 20 years, saying they won't
eat anything with a heart or a face.

Red-meat consumption has been steadily dropping since 1983, while
poultry and fish are on the rise. Knutson, economist with the American
Meat Institute, blames the decrease in large part on "negative press."

In 1985, the meat industry began a program to improve its image.
Livestock farmers now contribute $1 for every head of cattle sold to a
fund set up by the National Meat and Live Stock Board "to put a better
product out there," says spokeswoman Donna Schmidt. The annual budget is
$40 million: $25 million for promotion, the rest for research and
education. Schmidt points with enthusiasm to the debut last week of
McDonald's McLean Deluxe, a lower-fat burger cut with a seaweed
derivative, as an example of the industry's research and response to
public demand.

Knutson says the meat industry is being forced to counter the bad
press and false claims. He says Americans only eat about 4 ounces of
meat a day, when it is trimmed and the bone is removed. He said that the
percentage of dietary fat from animal sources has declined to 57 percent
in 1985, from 83 percent in the early 1900s.

Still, the dreaded cholesterol is found only in animal products,
said Robyn Flipse, a nutritionist in Ocean Township. Knutson says meat
is the best source of iron.

Knutson said claims that the industry is bulldozing the South
American rain forest for grazing land for animals is "a joke. We don't
import any product coming from the rain forest. There might be cattle
being raised down there, but it has nothing to do with the U.S. beef
industry."

Both sides welcome nutritional awareness. Schmidt said once people
learn that meat has a lot to offer and isn't as unhealthy as they
thought, they'll eat it again. "People have a world of information,"
said PETA's Walker. "They're becoming conscious, compassionate
consumers."

Lt. Scott Grabin, commanding officer of the housing police for
western Queens, N.Y., has been a vegetarian for a decade. Although as a
teenager, he won a cheeseburger-eating contest, a combination of his
mother's illness with colon cancer and his reading about the way animals
were raised for food changed his eating habits. "The more knowledge I
attained, the more convinced I felt that vegetarianism was the best
course of action I could take for my health, the environment, and animal
rights."

Grabin admits he's something of a novelty among policemen, known for
their Dunkin' Donuts and Wendy's proclivities. He added that
vegetarianism is associated with "meek, mild behavior," which doesn't
fit the image of police, he said. "I don't see any conflict, though," he
added. "I also respect life a lot, and that also includes animal life."

He has seen a definite shift in people's opinions about
vegetarianism. While his co-workers may still kid him about eating
"grass," there is "certainly a broader awareness from people who know
people who have heart disease and cancer. Now, they're all saying `I eat
salad for lunch, too,' or `I'm eating a lot less red meat,' rather than
making fun of me."

More young people are becoming vegetarians for ethical reasons, says
Debra Blake Weisenthal of Vegetarian Times. Others are going meatless
for health reasons: Some restaurateurs, nutritionists, supermarket
managers, and other people concerned with the public's eating habits
say it is the No. 1 impetus. Mary Lou Bale, public relations director at
Chilton Memorial Hospital in Pompton Plains, stopped eating meat 11
years ago for that reason. She said many people around her were
vegetarian, and after thinking and reading about it, "I believed their
philosophy that red meat was unhealthy and hard to digest, and that with
poultry, there were a lot of questions about what they fed the animals.
"

Since she stopped eating meat, she says, she has become "more
sensitized" to other issues, "but it's still primarily for health."

Tanya Galgano, 16, of Franklin Lakes started young. She stopped
eating red meat two years ago, after "I read up about slaughterhouses
and the conditions the animals were under. It disgusted me. I always
loved animals but never connected the two -- or I guess I never wanted to
think about it. But finally I opened my eyes, and decided I couldn't
avoid that the steak I was eating came from a cow."

Even if conditions were better, she said, "there's other stuff out
there; I still don't believe I have to eat an animal." Galgano is also
active in Creating Our Future, a national youth environmental
organization; she is quick to point out why being a vegetarian helps the
environment, too. Vegetarian groups say that meat-based agriculture is
energy-inefficient: It takes 16 pounds of grain to produce 1 pound of
beef. Livestock production uses more than half of all water used in the
United States, depletes topsoil, and creates pollution, they say.

Galgano said "it was kind of weird" for her parents, at first, but
now they are accepting of her choice. "It's not that unusual anymore.
It's becoming more mainstream."

When Galgano, a junior at Ramapo High School, gets to college, it
may seem even more so. The Marriott Corp., which provides food for about
400 colleges, offers at least one vegetarian entree at lunch and at
dinner in addition to salad bars and yogurts, a spokeswoman said.

This year, Montclair State College added vegetarian entrees into the
menu cycle. Montclair is following a trend on campuses toward more
innovative recipes, like spinach quiche, sweet-and-sour vegetables,
Navajo fry bread pizza, and entrees with tofu. "People are nervous about
it," said Kevin Ratkowski, assistant director of residence life, adding
that the vegetarian entree is usually the least popular of the three
offered at meals. "Some students don't even know what tofu is. But the
potential is there for it to get more popular.

"You go to school to learn, and we're educating their palate as
well."

Yale has taken it a step further. While they've offered a vegetarian
entree at every meal since 1971, 2 1/2 years ago, they began offering a
vegan entree as well, in response to student demand. Karen Dougherty,
executive dietitian at Yale University, said the vegetarian entrees are
"absolutely the fastest-growing category of entree. It's outselling
meat, fish, everything."

Dougherty says the number of vegetarians may not be increasing, but
meat eaters are eating vegetarian a couple of times a week, and
vegetarians are going for the vegan meals. "Everybody's eating down the
food chain," she said.