Homeless Dine on Vegetarian Fare : Food: Organization offers a free, meatless meal in statement about lifestyle and politics.

Larry ate out of a dumpster last week.

A man who has been living on the streets for seven years and goes only by his first name, Larry finds meals wherever he can, in trash cans, shelters and through the generosity of strangers.

But on Sunday at Lincoln Park in Long Beach, the 33-year-old drifter from Salt Lake City happened upon a different sort of fare.

After standing in line for half an hour, he ended up with a plate of lentil stew, sprout salad sprinkled with humus and broccoli sprinkled with seaweed. He also got some kiwi fruit, an assortment of multivitamin pills and a cup of non-dairy rice drink with which to wash it all down.

“This is the best food on the street right now,” Larry said of his vegetarian health food lunch. “Usually you get a lot of sugar.” His only complaint? “It needs a touch of seasoning,” he said.

To the people serving the fare every Sunday afternoon at the downtown park, however, the meatless food constitutes more than just a meal. It is a political statement by members of Food Not Bombs, a loosely knit organization with autonomous chapters throughout Southern California that feed vegetarian meals to homeless people.

“The world could be fed more efficiently on a non-meat diet,” said Pam Miera, 33, one of the coordinators of the Long Beach meal program. “The grain that feeds livestock could feed three times as many people as the meat it produces.”

In addition, she said, the use of land for cattle-grazing damages the environment by destroying vegetation and nutrients in the soil. And by being low in cholesterol and high in fiber, she said, a vegetarian diet can sometimes be healthier than one that includes meat products.

“I don’t think I’d feed anyone something that I wouldn’t eat myself,” said Stacey Hart, 24, who, like other members of the group, is a strict vegetarian.

Paula Stashak, a registered dietitian and assistant director of clinical nutrition at Memorial Medical Center of Long Beach, agrees that a vegetarian diet can be nutritious provided that it is “well planned” to include adequate protein and sufficient calories. The Food Not Bombs offering “seems to be well thought-out. It appears to be an adequate diet” for anyone, including people who don’t have access to regular meals, Stashak said.

The meal program has become a major weekly undertaking, involving hours of preparation and several organizations, but it began just a year ago as a modest attempt by a handful of Cal State Long Beach students to do something positive for the city’s burgeoning homeless population.

The first few “picnics,” then held twice a month, each attracted about 100 homeless people. Gradually word spread and several local organizations got involved. The Long Beach Farmers Market, in addition to donating fresh vegetables, awarded the group a $2,000 grant to purchase food.

Long Beach Area Citizens Involved and the Long Beach Area Peace Network began donating time and money. And several area churches, including the Unitarian Universalist Church of Long Beach and Geneva Presbyterian, began helping out with labor and materials.

Holding picnics every Sunday afternoon, the group now feeds an estimated 800 meals a month to homeless people. Working Saturday nights and Sunday mornings, volunteers prepare the food in their own kitchens. Then they load it into huge kettles and take it by van to Lincoln Park, where hundreds of homeless people regularly congregate.

Said Hart: “It’s a labor of love. There’s no difference between us and them; we’re all just two paychecks away from being homeless.”

Much of the food is still donated by the Farmers Market or purchased with the market’s grant, Miera said, but local health food stores and nonprofit organizations have begun donating, too.

In addition to their vegetarian philosophy, group members say they espouse pacifism and sometimes participate in anti-war demonstrations. On occasion they even use their Sunday picnics to promote political actions, such as a recent rally against U.S. policy in the Persian Gulf.

For the most part, though, the emphasis is on feeding the hungry, an activity that seemed to take precedence at a recent gathering in the park during which a crowd of mostly scruffy-looking men accepted the food from young people wearing peace buttons.

“In Phoenix, they feed you sweets and doughnuts,” said James Baker, 32, an unemployed former oil worker from Texas who said he has been living on the streets of various American cities for more than three months. “This is a lot healthier. It’s good food.”