I used to eat so much red meat that every so often the gang from PETA would hold a candlelight vigil outside my apartment. A nuisance? Yes, especially at barbeques. But after a few weeks their chants and protest songs became kind of catchy. I wouldn't buy the album, of course, but soon I knew all the words and found myself singing along, a victim of the same kind of phenomenon that explains the Goo Goo Dolls. "Hey, hey, ho, ho . . . this London broil has got to go."

I didn't want to believe their message had any merit. The treatment of circus elephants and the idea of bringing a polar bear to San Diego -- sure, that all sounds unnecessary and cruel to me, too. In my book, you want to see a polar bear, put down the cotton candy and go to where polar bears live. Polar bears don't tour. But the whole vegetarian thing had always been lost on me. I've enjoyed being an unrepentant carnivore, and I've continually felt sorry for my vegetarian friends, always insisting the bean-curd plate is just as tasty as the tri-meat kebab. They'll also tell you that going vegetarian is healthier and better for the environment, and how you can get all the protein you need from foods like chickpeas. In other words, eat all the shit you avoided as a child and you'll be fine. Christ, does that ever sound like fun.

Doctors, too, regularly warn Americans about the need to cut back on the egregious amounts of red meat we eat. But my love of cows, pigs, and encased meats extended so far I didn't pay them much attention, either. I looked healthy on the outside. I exercised. I even did yoga once, sort of. Besides, they were just doctors. What did they know about my health?

Then came the turning point. About a year ago, my stomach started to feel like it housed a little pyro gnome and his Bic lighter. Whenever I'd go crazy with my Deal-A-Veal and Deal-A-Steak-and-Cheese diets, the gnome would get bored and light my organs on fire. I asked a doctor friend what she thought might be troubling my innards. She asked me some probing questions. My symptoms brought her to a frightening conclusion.

Now, I don't know about you, but there are few two-word phrases that can have quite the life-changing effect as "gastrointestinal hemorrhaging." Perhaps "You're fired" or "I'm pregnant" could give it a run for its money, but even those depend on perspective. But "gastrointestinal hemorrhaging" pretty much says what it means. I soon came to learn that the condition does go by the slightly less offensive but not particularly endearing term "ulcer." This was my stomach, though, and medical euphemisms weren't going to help. I was bleeding internally. Something had to give.

The treatment? A few pills and a warning to stay away from three things: unhealthy food, booze, and Catholic priests. Actually, the third was caffeine, but my eventual conversion to Mormonism will keep me away from that, not to mention the priests. Booze, however, I knew I would need. So I decided to take aim at my diet.

A few people I respected related to me their experiences with "going organic," and usually vegetarian to boot. It was the sort of argument that made a lot of sense to me even before blowing a hole in my stomach lining, but lost its luster whenever the sweet smell of Italian sausage tickled my nose hairs. I pledged to try and follow in their sandaled footsteps, shopping at organic-food stores and buying chicken with the "free range, no hormone" label. Yes, if I were to eat God's creatures, they had better damn well have been able to stretch their legs.

I got started at Bread & Circus. I'd always been a Stah Mahket kind of guy, and part of me frowned on the B&C crowd. It's the one place that Robert Reich could walk into and everyone would gawk -- not because he looks like an extra from Moulin Rouge, mind you, but because of who he is. Everything at Bread & Circus is healthy and expensive as hell. You have to have a Harvard PhD, tenure, and a lucrative consulting job to shop here. But I don't, and I usually have nothing to say when the Chaucer discussion breaks out in the check-out line. I've since taken to wearing a mesh NASCAR hat when I shop. That way I can buy my organic burritos and Chomsky Chex Mix and everyone pretty much leaves me alone.

But as much as I never wanted to admit it, these organic types are on to something. As America's waistband expands and its two most prescribed drugs, Prilosec and Lipitor, largely treat the consequences of our miserable diet, it's become increasingly clear that in this country, good food -- like good movies, good music, and challenging art -- is something you have to search for. When you depend on the mainstream interests to give it to you, you get Mr. Deeds, Creed, and Thomas Kinkade. Frito-Lay, General Foods, and Wonder Bread can just as easily be thrown into our national mix of mediocrity. Elitist? Perhaps. But ask my stomach if it gives a damn.

Now, I'm no doctor. I don't even play one on TV. But something happened when I removed the BHTs and high-fructose corn syrups of the world from my diet. For a generation that was raised on the corporate sales pitch called "the four food groups," it isn't always so easy to realize that the way we should eat and the way many of us do eat are two completely different things. Though my becoming a vegetarian is still about as likely as a Ralph Nader presidency, I've been eating more or less organic for a few months now, and the results have been amazing. I seem to have stemmed the gastrointestinal hemorrhaging. The pyro gnome has packed up and moved on. And even though the folks from PETA still come by every once in a while, now it's just for Hacky Sack.

Garden burger, anyone?

n

Jay Jaroch was a writer for ABC'Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher and has returned to Boston to complete his multi-volume biography of Bryan Adams. He can be reached at jayjaroch@msn.com.

Issue Date: September 20 - 26, 2002