Why:
I switched to vegetarian in 2003, after spending a summer in Peru.

Notably, it wasn't Peru that switched me over, but rather the idea that if sustainability was really the thing I cared about the most, I really couldn't morally justify having such a huge impact on the world, just for the taste of meat.

I'm not one of those people who thinks it's morally wrong to eat living things. Let's face it, plants are also living things, and once you start dicing hairs, it gets pretty tough to nail down anything. Also, I'd agree that many of the conditions in which we typically eat animals leave huge room for improvement, and that issue's a whole lot more complex than I'm going to address here. I like the taste of some meat - Honey-baked Ham is amazing. Ribs are divine. Steak I was never a big fan of, nor turkey. Chicken was pretty good, especially for stir-fries.

It was really about living a life that I believed was morally right and just. With the enormous impact that a meat-eater diet has over a vegetarian one, it was an easy decision.

How
Thanks to my family genes, I'm a bit stubborn, and prone to stick with decisions once I make up my mind (however quickly that may be).

So I quit meat cold-turkey. (No pun intended). I didn't do any research, didn't investigate alternatives, and didn't ease into it. This was ok, because as mentioned, I'm the sort of person who isn't turning back, unless I literally hit a dead-end.

I tried a few morningstar and gardenburger veggie burgers, patties and the like, and some Amys. The Amy's were good, the morningstar and gardenburger were mostly horrible with a few bright spots, and it was clear I couldn't afford to eat fancy-pants fake meat all the time.

So, I started cooking again. My family has great cheap-food recipes - casseroles, pasta dishes, and the like that don't really depend on the meat. I found I could make large quantities of food, using maybe one meat substitute or tofu, and things tasted pretty much exactly right. Once I had a few staples down, it was the same as it'd been when I was eating meat, minus the gross meat-stryrofoam wrapper things. As a bonus, it was a whole lot cheaper than eating meat.

Restaurants were another challenge. The landscape's changed from back then, but there are still places where it's tough to find a dish without meat in it. When I drove out to Portland from NY, the midwest was particularly difficult (though, props to Iowa). Thank god for bk's veggie burgers. But in most places, there are some great veggie options.

Overall, I think my dining experiences have just changed. I still get great food when I go out, it's just different food than it was before. I'm also eating a lot more Thai and Indian food now, which is fantastic - they're some of the best, cheapest, and tastiest foods around.

So that's a pretty rambly version, but that's how I went vegetarian.

If anyone's ever going veggie, and has questions, feel free to post them, and I'll reply!