If you're a vegetarian or vegan (no meat, no animal products), that can be how Thanksgiving looks, tastes and smells.

One person's feast is another's fiasco.

An herbivore on a holiday built around a celebrated, sturdy piece of poultry can feel a little out of step.

At the same time, a host with plant-eating guests may be at a loss - may even be annoyed - by those disgusted by an expensive, hard-to-cook bird.

On a holiday commemorating a meal attended by no less disparate a group than Massachusetts Indians and disaffected Europeans, surely there must be some way that divergent parties can just get along. Right?

"It's repulsive to see turkeys running around on the news at Thanksgiving time, and then they're all getting killed," says Melissa Stockton-Brown, a Royersford vegan and a 19-year-old sophomore at Smith College in Northampton, Mass.

Oh. Well, that's a problem, then, isn't it?

"If someone wants to feel morally superior by not eating meat, that's OK," says California psychologist Edward Abramson, an expert on eating behavior. "It doesn't mean I have to apologize or explain myself."

Looks like things are getting out of hand. Perhaps a step backward is necessary, before the entire meal is ruined.

As it happens, a little more than 2 percent of the U.S. population over 18 says it never eats meat, fish or fowl and is, by definition, vegetarian, according to various polls.

The number of vegans is said to be between one-third and one-half the number of vegetarians, the Baltimore-based Vegetarian Resource Group says.

The VRG's researcher John Cunningham says the number of vegetarians has doubled since 1994. The number of vegans among vegetarians seems to be increasing, although it's hard to say by how much, he adds.

College is often the place where vegetarians are made, food experts say.