Vegetarian: Eat, Live and Let Live

Philip Oliphant became a vegetarian for philosophical reasons, but he said it also doesn’t hurt to think about eating flesh in terms of health.

“I know that the leading cause of death is from cholesterol, and that comes from the animal world, not from the vegetable world,” said the Tustin business consultant who two months ago helped form California Vegetarian Network in Tustin with 40 other county vegetarians.

More importantly, Oliphant said, “I wanted to be involved in a group with other vegetarians. Eating is a social thing that is ingrained in our whole societal structure and I wanted to be exposed to people who feel the way I do about food and a way of eating.”

Despite his role with the new organization, Oliphant isn’t trying to convert society to vegetarianism.

“Actually I’m more interested in myself, and that’s why I got involved in the group,” he said. “We have an information outlet, and if anyone asks us, we point out why we think it is a good idea.” (The information telephone number is (714) 490-3816.)

Oliphant became a full-fledged vegetarian two years ago, partly through his involvement in meditation and spirituality.

“There is a moral motivation involved,” he said. “If anyone had to go out and kill a chicken, it would be a difficult thing. That means there must be a problem if his own behavior is repulsed if he had to kill things.”

Oliphant said he does see signs of change.

“We live in a world of meat-eating, and I think that is changing,” he said. “Society is growing toward vegetarianism even though this whole business of pesticides in food is a real concern especially to those of us who are fully aware of what we are eating.”

Oliphant cautions that vegetarianism doesn’t automatically ensure a nutritionally balanced diet. And it doesn’t mean that even vegetarians are completely attentive to eating good food.

But in most cases, he said, vegetarians are interested in their health and eat healthy grains and vegetables. “You don’t find many who eat junk food,” he said, “since they concentrate on whole food and whole grain and learn to eat the full goodness of fresh foods and vegetables.”

And many, he added, even grow their own food.

Oliphant, a UCLA business school graduate, plans to open a vegetarian restaurant. “There’s a tremendous demand for one, but I would want it to stand on its own because of the quality of its food, not just because it’s a vegetarian restaurant,” he said.

Years ago, Barbara King of Laguna Beach interrupted her college studies at Michigan State University to marry a business executive whose job took them to England, Germany, the Middle East and China. They also reared four children.

So now that the children are grown, King returned to college to complete her education and in June will receive her bachelor’s degree in English at UC Irvine.

And at age 70, she will be the college’s oldest graduate.

Marie Wendling, 84, has written only 20 poems in the 20 or so years she has been writing poetry but hit the big time with one of them when she won the Golden Poet Award, the highest honor given by the World of Poetry organization.

Wendling said she had never won anything, and this is the first poetry contest she has entered.

But the resident of the Tustin Gardens retirement home decided to send in her poem entitled “Alcoholism,” which commemorates the death of a loved one.

It reads:

He didn’t walk the path of gold

Just stumbled through the lead

Now carried to his grave site

For he is stone cold dead.”

Wendling, who plans to attend the Fifth Annual World of Poetry Convention in Washington on Sept. 4, said she wrote it as a warning about the dangers of alcoholism.

Edison High School student Darren Moffet of Huntington Beach gave this personal statement about his long struggle with leukemia, to help people understand the impact of their blood donations.

“I’m living proof that blood drives do work,” said Moffet, who needed more than 150 units of blood before he went into remission.

He was the featured speaker at a Red Cross banquet at the Garden Grove Community Center to honor students who helped organize more than 100 blood drives which resulted in 6,130 units of blood over the past year.