Cats are true carnivores - feeding them a vegetarian diet is cruel and unhealthy. The Washington Post has a pet columnist on Thursdays - a Dr. Fox. Several weeks ago, a vegan wrote in criticizing the good doctor for not recommending a vegetarian diet for cats. He set her straight on the dietary requirements for cats.

I have no problem with vegans, ovo lacto vegetarians, carnivores - you name it. Good manners and consideration will go a long way for us all.

My overall opinion of vegans in general can be best summed up by one of my personal heroes: Anthony Bourdain.

To quote from his brilliant interview from Salon entitled "Bite Me"...

..."They're rude! People's choice to become vegan, from people I've spoken to, seems motivated by fear. Like, "it's possibly toxic, or ungroovy, or poisonous, or loaded with chemicals or some kind of harmful things that'll make me less healthy." I certainly don't see that as a good reason to do anything, certainly not a good reason to be rude to your host.

How can you travel? Before you've even left home, you've already decided, "I reject most of the world's bounty and the expression of their hopes and dreams and culture." Some nice, possibly impoverished Vietnamese rice farmer is nice enough to offer you the one chicken he can kill a month, or a week, and you say, "Sorry, I can't"? It just seems antihuman. It's antisocial.

And for anyone who says that everyone should eat like that -- it completely ignores the fact that, well, we can't afford to. We've got hungry people in this world. Go stay with the Bushmen for a week. Ninety-eight percent of their diet is meat..."

Enough said.

LaurieNY: "Our point is that no, meat-eaters are the ones who make an issue of what's on our plates... NOT US."

You can't possibly believe that, can you? I can certainly believe it's true of you personally, but the overall state of the discussion is, almost by definition, the fault of vegetarians -- or at least the vegetarian/vegan movement (which is obviously a smaller subset of people than plain old practicing vegetarians).

If the debate were framed in terms of aesthetics rather than political and moral imperatives, I guarantee that almost no one would have an opinion one way or the other. I, for instance, think people who eat egg salad are gross. But no one could take offense because I don't imply that they are causing problems for our society.

Conceding that individual consumers (as opposed to voters) should freely put whatever they want in their mouths would immediately defuse the issue. But the issue has been politicized -- and in doing so the vegetarian movement has probably hurt people by hardening an ideological divide that probably shouldn't exist in the first place.

People should eat more greens. And voters should try to clean up the meat industry.

Anything beyond that veers into narrow lifestyle politics, like the folks who think we can shame SUV owners into solving our energy problems.

Worman complains about the comparison of peasants and slaves to animals. I think the writer was not actually comparing peasants and slaves to animals, but rather comparing the concept of cruelty in one age to the concept of cruelty in another, which should be a valid point of comparison no matter how you view yourself in the biological scheme. When the instances of cruelty are compared, it is obvious that killing and eating is in fact worse than enslaving or beating.

"Herbivore vs. carnivore: Are vegetarians the moral, peace-loving, cruelty-free enemies of the meat eater? Or a bunch of kooks living in la-la land?"

Followed by a dull, too-long, stilted book review... which does not contain the premise of the teaser, except in describing some vegetarians as nutty.

COME ON, Salon, for God's sake. Are you so desperate for readers that you make up themes to draw people in?

Vegetarians are people who don't eat meat, period. A vegetarian for almost 20 years, I still feel nauseated by the kind of self-righteous extremism advocated by many in the PETA and other "animal rights" fold.

When I think about it I can't see any fundamental difference between this type of "pro-animal" extremism and the extremism of anti-abortion Operation Rescue types. Both are people who believe they have a handle on the fundamentals of morality and existence they think almost everyone else lacks. I believe that their activism is about convincing themselves of their own moral superiority more than it is about other things.

There are better and more effective ways to advocate for what you believe.

Of course I'm against animal abuse of any kind, but I don't see how anyone can claim that it is categorically immoral to eat meat. It's been the way of most of the world for countless millennia and it can only be an individual decision not to do it. I do NOT believe it is necessary to eat meat and encourage people to give it up, but only in a friendly way.

Elliot Berlin

As a vegetarian of almost 30 years I have listened to all of the defensive reactions and regurgitated urban myths of meat eaters and I am always quite astounded at their unwillingness to educate themselves. This is just another example of the ignorance and lack of reverance so prevalent in America today. If we were truly reverent of the planet, our neighbors, and our own bodies we would at the very least avoid eating meat. I will never tell a meat-eater they should stop eating meat but I will suggest to them that they should avoid supporting factory farming and eat organic, free-range meat if they are going to continue to make it a part of their diet. To not do so demonstrates a lack of reverence for their body and the planet (and consequently their fellow man and future generations).

The consequences of a meat-based diet are well-documented and anyone who has even a passing interest in their own health would do well to read some of John Robbins' books. He presents some of the most compelling and irrefutable evidence about our modern diet (particularly meat, dairy, and processed foods). He describes cultures where degenerative diseases like cancer and heart disease are a fraction of what they are in the USA because their diets avoid these foods.

So, reverence for animal life aside, we owe it to the planet and our bodies to be more reverent and informed about the way we feed ourselves.

And BTW, I don't consider someone who simply chooses to not eat meat a "vegetarian". I see many people who claim that distinction feasting on meat substitutes and other meatless processed foods and sugar-laced snacks and sodas that, while tasty, don't qualify as a true vegetarian diet or have the nutritive value of vegetables, legumes and whole grains.