Vegans and vegetarians say plant-based diets are healthier – and a growing number of experts agree

“Everybody loved it,” Maida said.

“We had some more for lunch today,” added Morton.

The Gensers have been vegans — avoiding not only meat but all animal products including milk, eggs and honey — since 1994, when Morton had three heart attacks.

“The doc says my heart is beatin’ good,” he says now.

Vegans and vegetarians are buoyed by a growing consensus that, followed with care, such diets can be healthful, even beneficial. In 2010, they won outright endorsement for the first time in the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s dietary pyramid, considered the standard of healthful eating.

The trend has generated media buzz. Oprah Winfrey put her 378 TV show staffers on a vegan diet for a week in February — drawing raves from some and exasperation from others. Martha Stewart cooked a “seitan bourguignon” — a takeoff on boeuf bourguignon using a meat substitute made from wheat gluten.

“It’s a good thing,” she declared.

Former president Bill Clinton told Wolf Blitzer on CNN that he is “almost vegan,” eating only a bit of fish since last year’s open-heart surgery. Boxer Mike Tyson says he feels “more powerful” now that he avoids meat, milk and eggs.

According to a 2009 Harris poll, vegans and vegetarians make up only 3 to 4 percent of the population, but the pollsters also found 8 percent of young people ages 8 to 18 shunning meat, leading proponents to declare it the wave of the future.

Reasons differ for avoiding meat. Some vow never to eat “anything with a face” for ethical reasons; others cite health concerns.

“I hope it’s growing because vegetarians are healthier,” says Dr. Janet Brill, a registered dietician who spent years teaching nutrition, health and fitness at Florida International University and the University of Miami. “Vegetarianism is politically correct; meat is now a four-letter word .”

Brill’s new book, Prevent a Second Heart Attack Book: 8 foods, 8 weeks to reverse heart disease, touts a mainly plant-based Mediterranean diet for good health and longevity.

Over the past decade, the medical community has increasingly supported plant-based diets.

A 2009 American Dietetic Association position paper said that “appropriately planned vegetarian diets, including total vegetarian or vegan diets, are healthful, nutritionally adequate and may provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases.”

In its 2010 dietary pyramid, the USDA gave vegetarianism this outright endorsement: “Compared to non-vegetarian eating patterns, vegetarian-style eating has been associated with improved health outcomes — lower levels of obesity, a reduced risk of cardiovascular disease and lower total mortality.”

The USDA stresses, however, that vegetarians must carefully plan their diets to avoid deficits of certain nutrients — particularly protein, iron, calcium, zinc and vitamin B12 — that normally come from meat, eggs and dairy products. It notes that they can get protein from cheese, eggs, beans and nuts; iron from spinach, kidney beans and eggs; calcium from milk, soy beverages and mustard greens; zinc from milk and wheat germ and vitamin B12 from milk, eggs and soy beverages.