Switching to a vegetarian diet can impact your personal health as well as the lives of hundreds of people and animals. It is widely considered to be more sustainable than the typical meat-eater's diet. Additionally, vegetarian diets can significantly decrease the risk of cancer and certain kinds of heart disease.

Read as much as you can; take books out from the library, head to Google and do some searching. Ask your doctor if you have pre-existing health conditions. Basically, collect the information that you need in order to make an informed, healthy and sustainable decision.

Try looking at the Wikipedia" title="Vegetarian">Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegetarian">Wikipedia" target="_blank">Vegetarian">Wikipedia page for Vegetarian information for more information on essential amino acids, possible vitamin deficiencies and an overview of environmental vegetarianism. Gotchas:

Vegetarians, as a general rule, avoid all meat and fish products. Lacto-ovo vegetarians still eat dairy and eggs; lacto-vegetarians consume dairy but not eggs; and ovo-vegetarians consume eggs but not dairy. Gotchas:

Here is what many people consider the hard part: put down the steak, pick up a veggie burger. Scour your local supermarket (and internet reviews) for the best meat alternatives; my favorites are Quorn's products and Amy's veggie burgers.

Planning your last cheeseburger might be a good way to go out; it's also OK to cut out red meat and eventually white meat over the course of 6 months.

Finding suitable vegetarian meals at restaurants and fast food locations will be one of the biggest problems, but restaurant chains have caught up with the vegetarian trend and many now offer a variety of solutions, such as veggie burgers, "no-meat" options and salad bars. Vegetarian options are often cheaper than meat dishes. Gotchas:

Congratulations! You have successfully cut your risk of heart disease, cancer, and osteoporosis. Additionally, your environmental "footprint" is much smaller than it was when you regularly ate factory-farmed beef. Gotchas: