For Meatout, eat someone else's do-without

THE FIRST day of spring, coming up soon, is the Great American Meatout. Got plans?

When Meatout launched 28 years ago, the notion of average Americans spending a day without meat was a radical challenge. Now, with Meatless Mondays becoming a household phrase, the once-a-year idea seems quaint - even if plenty of us still have yet to get to that point!

In addition to consciousness-raising, a meat-free day can show how omitting a food from your diet doesn't necessarily deprive you of eating pleasure.

This year, I say we can all try this by eliminating something that someone else has to live without.

Many V for Veg readers are already vegetarian or vegan. Others do without soy, or peanuts, or wheat. Still others eat "everything." Whatever your diet, step into someone else's shoes for the day. You might learn something about their challenges, or you might just learn about another kind of food you hadn't tried.

With the list of food sensitivities longer than ever, some grumble that people have just gotten picky lately. But there are real health conditions backing these choices - even if, say, most of the people driving the current gluten-free mania are not actual celiac sufferers.

Peanuts are a pretty serious allergy, but, for one day, those are relatively easy to sidestep. Tree nuts are trickier: Hazelnuts themselves are easy to spot, but tree nuts can show up in foods as diverse as barbecue sauce, rice cakes and smoked sausage.

Coconut allergy is distinct from tree-nut allergies but is often grouped with them in an abundance of caution.

The "soy scare" is way overblown. Soy allergy is real, but rare: While parents introducing soy to young kids may be cautious, a child is actually five times more likely to have or develop an allergy to cow's milk (easily the most common childhood food allergen).

Most kids outgrow milk allergies, but, conversely, most adults in minority populations are lactose intolerant - somewhere around 55 percent of Hispanics, 70 percent of blacks, 75 percent of Native Americans and 90 percent of Asians.

Mediterranean populations also have more lactose-intolerant adults than not. Caucasians have a genetic mutation that makes the condition relatively rare among whites.

So, doing a dairy-free day shows wide-ranging solidarity.

But if you're already animal-free, gluten-free, soy-, peanut- and tree-nut-free, there's also "temple" cuisine, which bans onions and garlic as too stimulating. Even without those staples, chefs like Christy Morgan still make food delicious in books like Blissful Bites (BenBella).

Other avoid-it-all resources include The Yummi Cookbook: Delicious, Healthy, Affordable Meals: without Meat, Dairy, Wheat or Soy & Nut Free! by Nathalie Thandiwe (A Health Conspiracy) and Let's Eat Out with Celiac / Coeliac & Food Allergies! by Kim Koeller and Robert La France (Gluten Free Passport). The "Passport" in that publisher name refers not just to the international cuisines covered but also to the dining cards you can get that translate your gluten-free or allergenic concerns into common foreign languages.

OK, to walk the talk, I'm doing the day gluten-free.

Fortunately, Philly has a top gluten-free chef, Allyson Kramer, who's provided two recipes from her upcoming book, Great Gluten Free Vegan Eats Around the World (Fair Winds Press). These two are also soy- and tree-nut-free; find them here. I'm leaning toward the Mushroom Spinach Curry, but the veggie frittata is also appealing.

How about you? If you're not yet eating animal-free, that's the logical tryout for the day. If you are, push the envelope.

After all, not all food omissions come from health concerns. You know the drill: livestock production is a key climate-change factor; animals have their own lives that we have no right to steal, etc.

But anyone doing "widdout" has a common goal: awareness. Maybe this shoe-swapping will increase understanding and compassion among the "ethics" crowd for those coming from a health angle. And, of course, vice versa.