When desserts were being delivered to nearby tables during a recent banquet my husband and I attended, we saw waitresses carrying steaming bowls of cinnamon buns oozing with gooey sauce.

As these tempting goodies reached our table and our tablemates, however, we had to smile when we were handed glass dessert goblets filled with a pretty variety of luscious berries instead of the sweet buns.

We soon figured out why. Apparently we were given the "vegetarian" dessert.

We had chosen the vegetarian option, and to be on the safe side, the kitchen staff at the banquet hotel probably treated all vegetarian meals as vegan, meaning all animal products are excluded from the diet.

Although my husband and I are vegetarians and do not eat animals, we do eat some dairy products, eggs and honey. Officially that places us in the category of lacto-ovo vegetarians, which are the majority of vegetarians.

The confusion in the banquet kitchen was easy to understand.

What isn't as comprehensible to me is the impression many people hold about vegetarianism, despite its continuing growth in recent years.

Just recently when a group from church decided to go to lunch at a nearby restaurant, one member said to me, "You can come. They have salads."

A friend who invited us to dinner, knowing we are vegetarians, had a meat dish as the main course.

"You can eat the peas and the salad," she told us.

When a vegetarian friend developed stomach problems last year, many of her nonvegetarian friends blamed the illness on her diet.

And I can't count the number of people who assume I must be unhealthy or insist I'm too thin or wonder if I have enough energy.

They could not be further from the truth. My husband and I are a rarity among our friends and acquaintances.

We take no medications whatsoever. Our cholesterol, triglycerides, glucose, blood pressure and anything else one can name or test are perfectly fine without chemical assistance.

Our diet is far from bland. My husband and I, as well as other vegetarians, do not subsist on just salads.

Our cuisine is a lively, colorful, creative mix of grains, pastas, rice, beans and lentils, fruits, vegetables, herbs, spices, nuts and seeds. We use mushrooms in a variety of interesting ways.

Fortunately, I love to cook and enjoy creating dishes that supply the nutrients we need for good health and vitality.

In fact, some of the vegetarians we know turned to this diet specifically to improve health, lose weight and decrease saturated fats (animal fats) in their blood.

In countries such as Italy and Spain, where olive oil is the main fat used, studies have shown a much lower incidence of heart disease than in countries where more saturated fats are consumed.

Closer to home, Loma Linda, Calif., which has a large Seventh-day Adventist population, has one of the highest rates of longevity in the world. (Seventh-day Adventists are vegetarians.)

The average life span there exceeds age 80, and this small city has been identified as one of the four places in the world with a high concentration of people over 100 years old who are living healthy lives, according to The New York Times and Dan Buettner, author and healthy living advocate.

Just as some people choose a vegetarian diet for their health, others do so for reasons of religion, animal welfare, the environment, compassion, nonviolence and world hunger.

The Sierra Club, in a food consumption fact sheet, maintains clearing land for cattle production "is a major cause of wilderness loss and habitat destruction in the U.S."

At least 260 million acres of U.S. forests have been cleared for cattle, according to the Sierra Club, which notes that 16 pounds of wheat and up to 2,500 gallons of water are needed to produce one pound of grain-fed beef.

Animal agriculture is a leading consumer of water in the U.S., according to Cornell University's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

Cornell ecologist David Pimentel also said the U.S. could feed 800 million hungry people with the grain consumed by livestock.

According to the Center for a Livable Future, based at Johns Hopkins University, "The way that we breed animals for food is a threat to the planet. It pollutes our environment while consuming huge amounts of water, grain, petroleum, pesticides and drugs. The results are disastrous."

Toxic waste from animal manure, filled with hormones, antibiotics and pesticides, is a major source of water pollution in the U.S.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the waste from animal agriculture has polluted over 35,000 miles of river and contaminated groundwater in more than 70 percent of states studied.

So for me, a vegetarian lifestyle is a moral and ethical choice. It's more than eating salads.

It's food for thought.