Thanksgiving gives people a chance to gather with loved ones and be thankful for what is important in their lives - it signals the start of the holiday season, and it's a prime time to overeat without guilt and scarf down loads and loads of turkey.

Unless... for some reason, whether it be ethical or having a distaste for the animal, you're a vegetarian or vegan.

Vegetarians are those who do not eat any meat, only vegetables, fruits and sometimes eggs or dairy products.

Vegans are strict vegetarians who don't consume or use any animal products, including dairy.

But these animal lovers aren't worried about the upcoming holiday, which, by the meat lovers out there, is celebrated by a big feast with the time-honored tradition of turkey as the main course.

Los Angeles residents Zel and Reuben Allen are the publishers of the monthly Web magazine Vegetarians in Paradise, www.vegparadise.com. Their site contains a smorgasbord of vegetarian and vegan recipes as an alternative to the traditional holiday turkey.

The site gives step-by-step directions for each recipe, along with some background information about the contents of each dish.

Dishes include herb-roasted potatoes, baked yams, creamed lemony broccoli, cranberry fruit confetti and Thanksgiving torte with mushroom gravy, which includes wild rice, walnuts, pecans and mushrooms.

Horticulture senior Jessica Long is a member of the Bower cooperative house, 127 Whitehills Drive, which is home to vegetarians only.

The house provides a vegetarian meal plan and offers a vegan alternative for those following the stricter diet.

Long said the house isn't planning on having an alternative Thanksgiving dinner because most of the house's residents will be out of town during the holiday, but she plans on making pumpkin soup and vegetarian stuffing to bring to her family's celebration.

Long has been a vegetarian for about two years and doesn't agree with the practices of mass meat production.

"I'm not opposed to people eating meat," she said. "I just don't think it's necessary, so it's not necessary for me."

Marketing junior Corey Portalatin said her younger brother enjoys tormenting her during Thanksgiving because of her vegetarian eating habits.

"They actually have this new thing out called Tofurky, which is like a tofu version of a turkey," she said. "The texture is different, but I suppose there's a similarity in taste - it's definitely a higher quality tofu."

Some students, like history junior Kati McVey, said their vegetarian eating habits are never a problem at the Thanksgiving dinner table.

McVey has been a vegetarian for about 10 years, and she said her mom looks forward to making Thanksgiving dinner every year.

"My mom has always got a new vegetarian recipe she likes to try out for Thanksgiving," she said. "We have a lot of mushroom dishes and tofu-based stuff - it's usually things that the rest of the family can eat too.

"Sometimes they give me a hard time about it, but it's all in good fun."

McVey said her family is planning on having vegetarian sushi and probably a "mushroom kind of sauté."

And for non-omnivore students who aren't heading home for the holiday, Owen Graduate Hall will be open Thursday from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Owen's dining room, which always offers a vegetarian alternative, will be serving green bean mushroom stroganoff and Italian stuffed shells with marinara sauce as the day's alternative.

The cafeteria will also be serving roast turkey, mashed potatoes, baked ham and all of the traditional fixings for the omnivore Thanksgiving dinner.

Freya Dinshah, president of the American Vegan Society in New Jersey, said the general public is more aware of what veganism and vegetarianism are, and the number of people changing their eating habits is continually rising.

The society publishes a quarterly periodical called American Vegan. The publication discusses the philosophy of compassionate living and practical aspects of the vegan lifestyle and features menus, recipes, food and event news and book reviews.

The group also has done worldwide lecture crusades to spread its knowledge.

The society is a nonprofit educational membership organization that explores and applies compassionate living concepts, including the preservation of the earth and its animals.

Dinshah said there are a lot of items that are on the typical Thanksgiving menu that vegans can enjoy anyway - with some modifications.

"The only thing we really don't have is the big centerpiece like the turkey, and there are a lot of nonmeat commercial items that go over quite well with many vegans," she said.

"When we first started this society in 1960, it was considered maybe an idealistic but unwise step to take. People thought it wouldn't constitute an adequate diet - but there are a lot more medical and health studies in favor of vegan diets now and it's seen as something that is admired."

For more information on the practice of veganism and vegetarianism, including recipes for Thanksgiving alternatives, visit www.vegparadise.com or www.americanvegan.org.