October is Vegetarian Awareness Month, a fact that might have escaped you here in South Florida, where the score is steakhouses, 66, vegetarian eateries, 17.

When you're the few, the proud, the meat-free, ''it helps to have a mission,'' says John Schott, chef-owner of Lifefood Gourmet, where the menu is vegan, raw and sustainable -- the kind of food Schott believes can heal, individually and globally.

Carnivores and skeptics may sneer, but it's hard to argue with Schott, who radiates a healthy hunkiness. (Mario Batali may know his way around a pig, but would you want to see him without his shirt?)

If Schott, 29, is the new, hipper face of veggie dining in South Florida, Irving Fields -- who looks pretty good himself, especially for a man turning 70 next month -- is a link to the old tie-dye and brown-rice days.

''People are more aware of what they're consuming, more sophisticated -- it's exciting,'' says Fields, who was inspired by the '60s health-food craze to study nutrition and, in 1971, open Granny Feelgoods in the heart of Miami's downtown business district.

''Everybody thought I crazy,'' says Fields. ``I had long hair and these guys were pretty straight, conservative.''

With dishes like Granny's tamari-glazed grilled tofu, whole-wheat pasta with mozzarella, basil and tomato and popular tofu Reuben, he set out to show the suits that good and good-for-you could co-exist on a plate.

The gone-but-not-forgotten Spiral in Coral Gables and Oak Feed in Coconut Grove and the still-kicking Here Comes the Sun in North Miami and The Last Carrot in the Grove were also part of that first wave.

Terry Dalton joined the effort to elevate vegetarian food beyond ''bland tofu, bean sprouts, bread that was chewy'' with the opening of Unicorn Village in North Miami Beach in 1979.

''We had to find that balance between natural and organic and the foods people like to eat,'' says Dalton, whose hugely popular health-food eatery was the nation's busiest when he sold the adjacent Unicorn Marketplace to Whole Foods in 1995. He kept the restaurant but closed it the following year.

Fields, who sold Granny Feelgoods in 2004, manages the Café at Books & Books in Coral Gables, where he often sees old Granny's customers.

''Not only do I remember them,'' he says. ``I remember what they ate.''

Dalton, 62, helped launch Sublime, Fort Lauderdale's vegan mecca, in 2003 but later bowed out. He describes himself as ''kind of a bum'' who divides his time between homes in Jupiter and Boquete, Panama.

''It's up to the next generation to move this revolution forward,'' he says, adding, a bit wistfully, ``and it was a revolution.''

Enter restaurateurs like the Colombian-born Schott, who came to the United States at 19 to study with New York raw-food guru David Jubb. Schott can talk living food enzymes all night, but ``I don't impose anything on anyone. That turns people off.''

The last thing he wants to do is perpetuate the old notion that vegetarian cuisine is ``hippie food made by people who are a little bit crazy.''

His menu at Lifefood includes dishes like nachos with guacamole and Brazil nut cheese, raw tacos that get their goodness and crunch from quinoa and flax seed and ''The Mother of All Lasagna'' -- tortillas layered with spinach, pumpkin-pesto cheese and macadamia-pine nut alfredo sauce.

''What attracts people is really great food,'' Schott says.

At Shing Wang Vegetarian in North Miami Beach, that means seaweed salad, tofu-based Shanghai-style stir-fries and fun, fruity bubble tea. At Morningside mainstay Honey Tree it means a meatless lunchtime smorgasbord of international dishes capped, perhaps, with a slice of soy-based chocolate-mousse pie.

And just downstairs from Schott's Lifefood Gourmet in the same small Roads neighborhood building, it means luscious pinenut cheese-stuffed mushrooms, mango empanadas and raw chocolate mousse at Om Garden.

''We're about bringing our future generation to another level of enlightenment,'' says owner Dionette Kalkhofer.

A food-industry veteran and reformed steak tartare junkie, Kalkhofer, 46, saw the vegan light a year and a half ago, and says she has shed 45 pounds since parting ways with meat and dairy, as well as refined sugar.

Open less than six months, Om and Lifefood seat fewer than 50 between them. They make their food to order, by hand, with organic ingredients and love. They don't serve cow, but comfort and connection are always on the menu.

''There's a very big need for this to be done the right way,'' says Kalkhofer.

By that she means keeping it small, keeping it real and not going cheap. (The organic agave in Om's decadent chocolate mousse costs $90 a gallon.)

Like other new-wave vegetarian restaurateurs, Schott and Kalkhofer aim to maintain a vital connection between the food they serve and their mission of health and compassion.

''South Florida needs it,'' Schott says. ``It's about building community.''

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