Watch things in nature, I've noticed that most animals lives end with them being killed and devoured by other animals. If we weren't here that wouldn't change.

I also notice that, with a few exceptions, the most intelligent animals are all predators. This makes sense. You have to be somewhat intelligent to outwit and run down prey. You have to be able to communicate on some level to hunt cooperatively, as wolves and lions do. I would state predation was a major contributor to our evolution as sentient beings. I would bet that defense against the same was also a contributor.

I also notice that our closest primate relatives, chimps and bonobos, are omnivorous, but prize meat. Any video/film of chimps hunting will demonstrate this. Meat is used in exchange for grooming and sexual favors.

I've also noticed that we, as a species, rarely do anything better than nature. Yes, we can build a plane that flies higher and faster than a sparrow, but a sparrow can do it on a couple of seeds and a worm. We're not that efficient.

Draw your own conclusions.

What I've heard, and I admit I'm not the most informed on this, is that a standard process is to stun the cows using some sort of impact device to the head, then proceed to boil them in water (to loosen the flesh) and skin and dismember them alive, along down the assembly line. From what I've heard, quite often the stun is not enough to put them out and the cows have to endure dying in the most horrific ways imaginable.

If you've seen photos or 60-minutes type exposes, the pain and misery on the cows' faces is right there, and completely palpable.

I am old enough to remember first hand my peasant grandparents who came here from Sicily at the beginning of the 20th century. So many of the dishes we ate as young American children were vegetarian.

In their pre-America days meat was a luxury that, hopefully, made it to the table on holidays. All other days were filled with delightful meals of greens, grains, legumes, veggies all spiced to perfection.

As they became wealthy here, meat became the norm. My grandfather succumbed to a heart attack at 78. My grandmother lived with vigorous health and completely independent into her mid 90's. She attributed her vigor to her preferred diet, that of a vegetarian.

I took up vegetarianism for 14 years for health reasons, just breaking that meat-fast this Christmas. Since returning to eating meat, my health has changed, and not for the better. I am going back, began it yesterday, in an effort to feel better. I have empirical evidence in my own body of the difference between the two.

It had nothing to do, for them or me, with higher morality. For them it was how peasants ate. For me, it is probably aligning my body with my genetic makeup.

Long live dandelions with olive oil and garlic!

The vegetarian's problem is that it's been shown enough times that we're omnivores, not herbivores -- we're best served by a diet that is mostly vegetables (and fruit and grain) supplemented periodically by meat -- look at what they eat in Okinawa (and other places), where people live a very long time, an in good health.

This is a far cry from the carnivorous "meat and potatoes" American-style diet, just as it's a far cry from the ascetic boutique lifestyle that is veganism.

There's neither the implied moral superiority of vegetarianism in it nor the drooling, neolithic abandon of the diehard Atkins-style chowhound, so the moderate course is less glamorous, even though it's demonstrably healthier than either extreme, if health and longevity are benchmarks.

If everybody stopped eating meat, ironically enough, cows, pigs, chickens and other species would go extinct, because there are way more of them than there needs to be, owing to people's consumptive habits. Maybe vegans would then pursue a "livestock rights" movement where such suddenly-useless, superfluous animals get to be cared and fed in perpetuity as reparations for their lost brethren in less-enlightened ages.

No, I think it's more useful to pursue a serious reformation of agribusiness -- 1) moving beyond factory farming to healthier, more humane free-range and organic practices; 2) ceasing the practice of feeding rendered protein to cows -- cows ARE herbivores, you jags; 3) similarly, stop feeding cows grain to artificially (and inefficiently) fatten them up -- cows are meant to graze on grass, not be fed corn and wheat; 4) encourage diversity in livestock species; 5) develop local food markets instead of (inter)nationalized conglomerates; 6) move past the need for chemical agriculture -- the antibiotics and biotech glop they're spiking livestock with to give them the appearance of health or to minimize the ill effects of agribusiness-as-practiced.

I think these things would lead to an improvement in the quality of meat that people eat, and give us a healthier lifestyle, and would address some of the key animal cruelty issues that bother people.

I've been a vegetarian since 1989 (starting with veganism, moving to ovo-lacto veggism, and at the moment a lacto-veggie). I've noted one important thing in all this time: meat eaters are WAY more interested in what I eat, and why, than I am in what they eat. In fact, I could give a rat's ass about what's on their plate. And yet I am often the centre of attention at dinner tables, asked to explain myself when all I want to do is eat my eggplant in peace. I'm no evangelist. I don't try to convert. If you ask, I'll tell you. But first, tell me why you want to know? Seems to me it's the meat eaters who are always caught up in the morality of what is eaten. They put me in the centre of attention and proceed to interogate. Why is that? Guilty consciences, perhaps.

I've been a vegetarian since 1989 (starting with veganism, moving to ovo-lacto veggism, and at the moment a lacto-veggie). I've noted one important thing in all this time: meat eaters are WAY more interested in what I eat, and why, than I am in what they eat. In fact, I could give a rat's ass about what's on their plate. And yet I am often the centre of attention at dinner tables, asked to explain myself when all I want to do is eat my eggplant in peace. I'm no evangelist. I don't try to convert. If you ask, I'll tell you. But first, tell me why you want to know? Seems to me it's the meat eaters who are always caught up in the morality of what is eaten. They put me in the centre of attention and proceed to interogate. Why is that? Guilty consciences, perhaps.