what it was like to be raised a lacto ovo vegetarian in the 1950s

You couldn't really talk about it to many people unless they were close friends because it was mostly too strange for most people. Being a vegetarian didn't get to be accepted that much until the late 1960s onward.

Most vegetarian restaurants in the 1950s were connected to a religion that was vegetarian like Self Realization Fellowship (Paramahansa Yogananda) who I believe passed on around 1950 but came to the U.S. to start his Self Realization Fellowship around 1914. It took hold in Los Angeles (at Lake Shrine) and in Encinitas, California on the ocean as well nearer to San Diego.

There were two Vegetarian restaurants that were good that were operated by SRF one in Hollywood and one in Encinitas. So, people of my religion who were all lacto ovo vegetarians ate on weekends often in the one in Hollywood because it was really great vegetarian food.

However, during the 1960s and 1970s there became too much competition from so many hippie run vegetarian restaurants that both these SRF restaurants eventually shut down.

The best way I can share what it was like being a vegetarian in the 1950s as a child is to tell you what I could actually order in any non-vegetarian restaurant. That sort of says it all:

I could order:

A Baked potato

A Salad

A Grilled Cheese Sandwich

a Glass of milk

Some noodles or pasta of some sort

A cheese pizza

Oh I could also order tea or soda pop too. 

And maybe some vegetable soup or Tomato soup or Mushroom soup 

And that's about it in the 1950s and most places didn't have even half of these things to order. 

And that was about it for most restaurants that weren't vegetarian restaurants in the 1950s. 

As a result of this we didn't go to restaurants much. However, there was a organic food store nearby us called "Foods For Life" that we shopped at for organic foods from 1956 to 1969 when we all moved away to somewhere else. From 1956 to 1969 we lived in Glendale, California.