What to eat when you are a vegetarian?!

Vegetarians, more than anyone, should have a very diverse diet in seasonal produce, especially vegetables. Whole grains in the forms of rice and pasta are a good foundation, but life doesn't have to be all broccoli and pasta. Protein is the primary component where Vegetarians are losing out. Here is some food for thought on high protein foods

Lentils: High in iron and dietary fiber too, lentils are easy to prepare. They're great for curries, soup (obviously), or braised with wine. And, a cup of cooked lentils will give you 35% of your daily protein.

Chick Peas: Chickpeas, or garbanzo beans, are delicious—mash 'em up and fry them for falafel, throw them into a salad, or eat them straight out of the tin. Eating a cup of chickpeas gets you 30% of your daily protein needs.

Tofu: I never could get used to tofu; it was one of my great failures as a vegan. But 4 ounces of tofu nabs you around 20% of your protein intake—and there are a slew of potentially delicious dishes you can make with tofu. Seitan and tempeh are high protein foods worth keeping around, too.

Nuts: Eat plenty of nuts. Just about any kind will do—avoid salted nuts, at least at first, because you might find yourself eating more than you did in your non-vegan days. Walnuts, almonds, and cashews are some personal favorites.

Peanut Butter: Logic may dictate that this should be included in the 'Nuts' category, but I say there's a difference. Peanut butter comes in handy in completely different ways—on toast in the morning, in a sandwich for lunch, even as part of a chunky topping to a dessert. Now, peanut butter is the least purely healthy food on the list, so use it sparingly, and buy organic to avoid the processed stuff.

You aren't a vegetarian if you don't even know what you're doing! For all you know you've been eating all kinds of animal foods just because you haven't bothered with even a minimal amount of research. All the info you need can be found using the same device you used to ask this question-use it. We don't know what you like, what your budget is like, how good a cook you are or even if you know how to read an ingredient list.

Five essential nutrients for vegetarians:

Iron

Eggs, pulses, dried fruit, dark green vegetables, wholemeal bread and fortified cereals (with added iron).

Calcium

Milk and dairy products, oat milk, fortified soya products (with added calcium), tofu, pulses, fortified cereals and bread, dark green leafy vegetables.

Vitamin B12

Yeast extract, fortified soya milk, fortified breakfast cereals (with added B12), eggs, cheese and milk.

Vitamin C

Citrus fruit and pure fruit juices, vegetables, salads.

Vitamin D

Fortified breakfast cereals and low-fat spreads (with added vitamin D), margarine, eggs, food supplements.

Protein

Milk, cheese, soya, textured vegetable protein, Quorn, pulses (for example, beans, peas, lentils, tofu, hummus

I also stopped eating meat. You have to be careful .. um i forget what its called that you need b12 or something (research it)

Anyhow.. I usually eat

Fruit
Nuts (lots of nuts)
Protein bars
Tofu
Peanut butter
Beans
whole wheat
cheese (cannot eat if your a vegan)
eggs (i still eat egg) :)

which if you eat dairy products makes you an : ovo-lacto vegetarian

Making great meals is also good:

Indian food has the best vegetarian recipes
vegetarian pizza
vegetarian soup
an easy one eggplant Parmesan
Thai vegetarian food
Pesto is my favorite
pesto sauce
or plain diced tomato pasta

See there are a lot of options when it comes to vegetarian food.
Soups and Salads.. You can try a variation of soups just by using different veggies.
Mixed veg soup, spinach soup, carrot soup, sweet corn soup, tomato soup etc.
Then for the main course..
You can have lentils.. with rice
Now its easy to make this..

Heat some oil, add cumin seeds,curry leaves, crushed garlic and a little CHILI. To this add 1 chopped onion and saute till brown. Add 1 chopped tomato and cook till oil separates. To this add the lentils ( that have been soaked in water for about 1/2hr before itself).
About 1 cup of lentils ( there are different types of lentils, you can use the one you prefer )
Add salt and other seasonings as per your choice.
Add sufficient water. Around 21/2 to 3 cups. You can pressure cook to speed up the process. Pressure cook for about 5 minutes.
This is known as dal and can be eaten with rice or bread.

Another easy thing to do is, make a tomato onion gravy in the proportion of 1:2.
Heat some oil, add cumin, ginger-garlic paste and chopped onions and cook well. To this add the tomato puree. Cook till oil separates. Now to this gravy you can add any vegetable that you like. You can potatoes and peas, or mixed veggies (carrots,beans,peas,cauliflower and capsicum ) or kidney beans or eggplant or soya granules. There are many options. Cook well. Add salt and other spices.
Serve with bread.

you can eat fruits and green vegetables

Carrots juice

A vegetarian does not eat any meat, poultry, game, fish, shellfish or crustacea, or any slaughter by-products. Vegetarians do eat eggs and some dairy products.
Most vegetarians want to be absolutely sure that they aren't consuming any product or by-product of slaughter. However, there's still some confusion as to what vegetarians do and don't eat, partly because many people who call themselves vegetarian can sometimes turn a blind eye to the small print on labels. Or they may openly include fish in their diet, at which point they are more accurately called pescatarian.
Anchovies: beware of anchovies in Worcestershire sauce and shrimp paste or fish sauce in Thai curry pastes.

Animal fats: sometimes found in biscuits and cakes, in the form of lard in pastry or suet in puddings and mincemeat. Animal fats can also be found in margarines, spreads and ice creams. Watch out for chips fried in animal fats.

Gelatine: used in sweets, (particularly chewy ones), nutritional supplements in capsule form, ice cream, yoghurts and desserts such as mousses, jellies and panna cotta. Look out for gelatine in low-fat versions of products such as yoghurts and whipped desserts - it's sometimes added for texture to help the product hold together.

Meat stocks: can turn up in soups, risottos and gravies.

Rennet: found in many hard cheeses. Rennet is an enzyme extracted from the stomach lining of slaughtered calves. Vegetarian cheese can be made using microbial or fungal enzymes. While you will usually be able to find vegetarian cheddars and other common hard cheeses, traditional parmesan is always made with animal-derived rennet. There are, however, some vegetarian parmesan-style cheeses produced in the UK such as Twineham Grange. (For this reason, recipes calling for 'parmesan' are included as 'vegetarian' in BBC Food's recipe database.) Cheese powders used to flavour crisps are often non-vegetarian.

Whey: the Vegetarian Society recommends avoiding whey, which is usually a by-product of the cheese-making process where rennet has been used. Whey is often used as a flavour carrier in crisps.

Alcohol and other drinks: most wines, many spirits and some beers are 'fined' (clarified) or filtered using animal products such as egg white or isinglass, which is derived from the swim bladder of a fish. Some drinks, such as Campari and some soft drinks, use cochineal (derived from a type of beetle) as a colouring agent. Read the labels carefully and choose drinks that state that they’re suitable for vegetarians and. The good news is that there's a wider range of good-quality drinks than ever.
Vegetarian ingredients and substitutions

There are many replacements for meat or animal by-products that are delicious and fairly easy to find in health food shops and supermarkets. These are not required eating, but they may be useful for substitutions in your favourite traditional dishes.

Textured Vegetable Protein - Textured vegetable protein (TVP) is soya flour that's been processed and dried. A substance with a sponge-like texture, TVP is available either cut into small chunks or ground into granules which resemble minced beef, and can be flavoured to resemble meat.

Wheat protein (seitan) - A useful ingredient for vegans is wheat protein, sometimes called seitan, which is derived from wheat gluten (the protein part of the flour). The gluten is extracted from wheat and then processed to resemble meat.
Nutrition for a vegetarian diet

Here's a quick summary of what you need to eat every day if you're a vegetarian, from the Vegetarian Society:
? 4 -5 servings of fruit and vegetables
? 3- 4 servings of cereals/grains or potatoes
? 2- 3 servings of pulses, nuts and seeds
? 2 servings of milk, cheese, eggs or soya products
? a small amount of vegetable oil, margarine or butter
? some yeast extract that has been fortified with vitamin B12
Getting enough protein may be a challenge in a vegetarian diet, so here's a quick run-down of foods that are high in protein:
? Dairy products
? Eggs
? Nuts and seeds
? Peas, beans, lentils
? Soya products and mycoproteins
? Wheat protein (seitan)
? Wholegrains (rice and cereals

Vegetarian diets can be very healthy, but eating a balanced diet when you are vegetarian usually requires a little extra attention. Because vegetarians eliminate certain foods from their diets, they often need to work to add foods into their diet that will provide the nutrients found in meat products. By eating a variety of foods including fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, you can get nutrients you need from non–meat sources. Vegans need to pay special attention to getting enough iron, calcium, vitamin D, and vitamin B12.