I'm thinking about becoming a vegetarian?!

Best Answer - Chosen by Voters

Good decision. Adam and Eve were Vegetarians. Start by purchasing a Vegetarian cookbook.
SDA

I wasn't going to touch this question but Calvin made me. I can already feel the all the thumbs turning down....read it all before you judge.
"You will be healthier, stronger, less prone to illness..." BS. Studies have shown that any of these supposed benefits are not attributable to a purely vegetarian diet, instead they are because vegetarians are actually TRYING to eat healthy and avoid all the crap in most peoples' diets. Saving money- debatable. What you save on meat and junk food may be devoured in dietary supplements and the cost of whatever you find to 'treat' yourself. Saving animals lives-ok, but don't expect a Christmas card from the 47 chickens, 2 turkeys, 3 cows, 3 pigs, 1 lobster, 126 shrimp, and 1 rat (yes, probably one rat) that were not eaten by you this year.

Becoming vegetarian or vegan requires a commitment: you will have to eat a lot, plan ahead, analyze your meals and your lifestyle, probably take vitamin supplements, deal with other people's questions, misunderstanding and occasional derision. Most vegetarians I know feel very strongly about 'animal rights'. You have to have a solid, core-of-your-being reason to do this. It's not something to do just so you can say you do. The human body is designed to be omnivore, you can get around it but it takes work, real work.
I may completely disagree with hardcore vegans or vegetarians about the necessity for such measures but I can totally respect that they believe so strongly they would go to such lengths, even admire the commitment and willpower necessary. Half-assed 'vegetarian' posers drive me nuts...

Oh, for the record, there are no Vegan superpowers.

If you believe in it that strongly go for it and I wish you success.

Positives: you feel better, you are helping animals, you will be healthier if you do it right (ie not overdoing eggs, cheese, desserts and getting lots of veggies and fruits), you will explore new foods that you may not have tried before.

Negatives: you actually have to think about what you are eating, some people may criticize you.

as you can see, i say go for it! if you don't like it, you can always go back to eating meat.

As long as you're an ovo-lacto vegetarian, I think today it's pretty easy to be vegetarian. Most major restaurant chains have vegetarian options. If you cut out the eggs (ovo) and dairy (lacto), it gets a lot tougher.

As has been said, you can't expect to replace nutrient rich meat with a salad and stay healthy. You'll need to do your research and find out how to replace the protein, calcium and iron (to name a few nutrients) in meat with veggies. While, for example, most veggies contain protein. But it's not the complete protein found in meat. You need to eat a wide variety of veggies (and a lot of them) to get the protein you find in meat.

Then there's iron. The non-heme iron in veggies is not as easily absorbed and used by your body as the heme iron in meat. And so it goes with various important nutrients.

Vitamin B12 is not available in plant foods at all. If you continue to eat eggs and dairy, you should get B12 there. But most veg*n sites recommend a good multi-vitamin just to be sure. (BTW, in case you don't know: veg*n is shorthand for vegan and/or vegetarian.

Here's a link to a major vegetarian site. They have health/diet info there. Good luck....: http://www.vrg.org/

Positives: You will be healthier, stronger, less prone to illnesses, saving animals' lives and save money.
Negatives: You would have to eat more to gain your nutrients from veggies such as protein and vitamin b12, less variety of food choices, and you may upset people in your family.

Experience

I think it's easier to try it without making a big announcement. I did that when I went vegan because it wasn't something I was sure I could do. Some people quit meat "cold turkey" and some people quit in stages, you will know what will work for you.

Being veg*n is very healthy as long as you eat the proper foods. You can't just stop eating meat and fill up on potato chips and expect to be healthy, so here is some useful information and a food pyramid you can use as a guide.
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/vegetar…


Once you get your footing, you'll begin to see that finding delicious food isn't hard at all.
Here are some recipes to get you started.
http://www.vegetariansrecipes.org/

The only negative I can think of is dealing with people who haven't taken the time to research how easy it is to be healthy without meat.

Good luck and have fun!

vegan

good decision keep it up