Yes, I agree that it is difficult to change a mind that has been fixed for a long time. However, my mind is fixed on logic and truth, while you are hell bent on pushing some sort of "cute and fuzzy" agenda. First of all, let's dispense with the notion that meat = disease, especially cancer. Cancer takes many forms, and therefore has many causes. As a person involved in cancer research and awareness, I have never heard of any patients who have contracted their illness due to a lifetime of eating pizza burgers. Unless you can provide some realistic scientific information that meat is the primary cause of any cancer, I will dismiss your first claim as nonsense. Let's look at your next argument. You say that predators do not "pump their dinner with hormones and anti-biotics, nor do they keep them penned in large communities." Ok, yes, you are correct: lions and bears and other such carnivores do none of the above. However, this therefore means that if one were to eat organic, free-range meat that is 100% free of artificially introduced chemicals, then meat eating is now acceptable. So, instead of eating the so-called "dangerous" meat, we intelligent omnivores will start checking our meat purchases to make sure we know exactly what conditions it was raised, much the same way I'm sure 100% of all you veggie-people do. Of course, such a thing is impossible - one can never completely and unerringly know exactly how a farm animal or a vegetable product was raised, regardless of how many "Organic" stickers are slapped on the packaging. Finally, your last point about "cow pee" was humorous, but doesn't make for a good argument. Just because you paint a disturbing or disgusting image by telling us that cow pee somehow gets into the ground water, doesn't make your argument any more sound. Are you suggesting that we get rid of our country's cattle population? What about the millions of other animals who inhabit our planet? Do they not pass bodily wastes onto the soil, and subsequently, into the ground water? And once again, I'd like to challenge anyone who can prove, as you and so many others have suggested, that that somehow, not eating meat is "good" for the environment. It sounds like a completely baseless statement, and I've yet to hear any convincing arguments that would change my perception of vegetarians - you all just seem to be people who don't like the idea of killing animals because they are cuddly, and because you assume them to be beings with rights. The fact is, you have no way of logically or intelligently proving your case, so you instead make up a bunch of nonsense about how hot dogs cause cancer and other health-related bunk whose purpose is to scare rather than inform. Bottom line is, if you don't like veal because you think cows are people too, then by all means, don't eat veal. But don't piss on my parade and tell me you know better than me. Because you obviously don't.