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Along with sharing gossip, best friends Emily Marver and Shannon Tesser trade recipes for tofu tacos and macaroni and soy cheese.

Marver, a theater student at Arizona State University, and Tesser, who is visiting from St. Paul, Minn., have recently become vegetarian and vegan, respectively, cutting meat and/or animal products out of their diet.

But while their newfound love of soy has strengthened their bond as friends, their diet choice doesn't fit well with most Thanksgiving Day dinners.

"When we were younger we used to fight over pounds of bacon on camping trips," Marver says. "Now it's the same thing but with soy jerky. We've been eating it non-stop this weekend."

Mark Fischer, operations manager of Gentle Strength Co-op in Tempe, says holidays are an opportunity to introduce people to vegetarian meals.

"There are a lot of really good dishes that you can make and bring to a dinner," he says. "A vegetable stir-fry is usually a good idea, and I usually tell people that a good way to undermine family politics is to bring a meat dish and offer it to everyone else."

Although the co-op does sell things like fish and free-range chicken, meat alternatives like to-furkey are also available.

There are varying degrees of vegetarianism ranging from vegiquarians, who still eat fish, to vegans, who don't eat any byproduct of an animal.

Marver has eliminated meat but still drinks milk and eats butter and eggs.

Tesser is a strict vegan who won't even eat french fries if they've been in the same fry-cooker with meat.

Like most people who make the decision to change their diet, each of the two has her own reasons for choosing the particular foods she eats.

"It kind of started when my boyfriend and I went grocery shopping one time," says Marver, who has been a vegetarian for eight months. "We grabbed a package of what we thought was ground beef and when we were in line I looked at the ingredients and saw that one of them was ground salmon heads."

Marver says she simply doesn't enjoy eating meat anymore.

She adds that there are so many alternative foods available that a lot of her old favorite foods haven't been eliminated completely.

"They can make soy and tofu into everything," she says. "In my refrigerator right now I have soy chicken patties, breakfast sausage, ooh and my favorite, veggie loaf. There are very few things that I miss."

Tesser, on the other hand, has been a vegan for three years because she believes strongly in animal rights.

"It's kind of a pain when I go out to a restaurant for dinner," Tesser says. "I have to ask about everything in the food from what's in the sauce to how the food was prepared. But I can usually find a good salad or pasta."

So for Thanksgiving dinner, the two will start the evening with an appetizer of spinach pot-stickers. Then the main course: an "un-turkey" - a wheat gluten-based meat alternative in the shape of a turkey garnished with stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy. For dessert, pumpkin pie topped with soy ice cream.

"My dad is still the meat-eater of all time," Marver says. "When I told him I was going to have a vegetarian feast he said, 'Well that's an oxymoron.'

"I'll show him!"

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