I’ll have the steak, thank you

October has been Vegetarian Awareness Month. The size of the U.S.’ “Eat No Meat Club” is growing, especially among women and children.

Polls this year cited by the Vegetarian Resource Group show these numbers of adults and children who say they never eat meat, poultry or seafood:

“5.1 million adults. About twice as many females as males are in that group.

“Among 8- to 18-year-olds, the number is 1.37 million. That’s a slightly higher percentage than among adults.

My wife, Rachel, is a strict vegetarian. I’ve been a meat eater all my life. When I do my occasional cooking, she has a veggie burger. I have steak. Our six chosen (adopted) children can choose.

Twins Ali and Rafi, 6, eat chicken but no beef. Ariana, 8, is a strict vegetarian who loves second and third helpings of boiled spinach with cheese topping. Her twin, Andre, eats chicken but no beef. Karina, 9, and Alexis, 15, match me bite for bite on good rare steak.

Many vegetarians cite general health or weight control as their motivator. None of our children is overweight and all are in good health.

At age 82, I weigh 165 pounds. That’s the exact weight I carried when I was discharged from the Army infantry after World War II in 1946.

Two reasons why I won’t join the “Eat No Meat Club”:

“As a country boy in South Dakota, while in high school I worked in an old-fashioned “butcher shop.” Owner Tom Rosser paid me $1 a week and all the salami I could eat. He also taught me how to cook a steak rare.

“In Europe in World War II, we all knew that that Nazi nut Adolf Hitler was a vegetarian.

Please pass the meat.