So, you've seen the media, you've eaten the food, and you've read Lyncheh's Kupipage, and you've decided to take the plunge and eradicate
animal flesh from your diet.

Congratulations. I'm proud of you!

However, the question oft needed rarely asked by new converts is this: What do I eat?

What do you MEAN what do I eat, Uncle neoeno? I've eaten vegetables before! I don't need none of your crazy lectures on
how to eat VEGETABLES, man, this is just not cool.

Calm down, young'n. You can't just chop the meat out of your diet and add in some more of whatever else you ate! Let's
take a glance, friend, at the mystical PYRAMID OF FOOD:



At the bottom, you'll see the grains, the bread, stuff that forms the economic base of your diet. Next up is fruit and
vegetables, all good so far! Next up.. uh oh... if you're going vegetarian, or even vegan, you're missing out on part
or all of this layer! And the top layer can also be a trouble if you're into the more meaty variety of desserts (aye,
they do exist), and especially if you're going vegan.

So, you see the problem? There's a gap in your diet that must be filled! Here are a couple of other nutrients you can
miss out on pretty easily:

B Vitamins, especially B12. These rarely occur naturally in non-meats. Luckily for us, a lot of
products are fortified with them, and so if you add a couple of those into your diet, you should be fine.
Iron can also pose a problem. Since we're not eating very much blood, we can run low on the iron that is
essential for us to make haemoglobin (and thus blood cells). This can leave us run down and generally lethargic. If you
feel like that, get some iron in you. Green leafy vegetables are pretty good for iron, and many breakfast cereals and
such are fortified with it. Iron probably shouldn't be an issue, since it occurs a fair bit in the Five Glorious Foods
of Vegetarianism that we'll discuss in a moment

I.E. NOW.

Vegetarian folk have existed through the ages, and so we've come up with some pretty good foods for us to survive on.
We've got a number of stock meals, and they're centred around the previously mentioned Five Glorious Foods of
Vegetarianism. If you familiarise yourself with these ingredients and learn a few meals for each ingredient, you'll be
living both a healthy and delicious vegetarian lifestyle. SO HERE THEY ARE:

Wheat: You're probably familiar with wheat in the form of bread, but did you also know it's the key
ingredient of most pasta? You probably did, but did you ALSO know that it can be formed into a rather meat-textured
food called seitan? I've not tried seitan myself, but I've heard it's good, though it's expensive if you buy it. It's
fairly easy to make though, and there are recipes on the internet if you're interested in that. Anyway, I skipped over
pasta before. It's technically in the grains section, but it's such a key component of my vegetarian diet that I
couldn't leave it out. You're probably familiar enough with pasta, so I don't need to cover its use so much.

Rice: Rice is another grain that vegetarians have a lot of use for. Again, you're probably quite used to
rice. Mix it in with a delicious sauce (don't mind what they say the sauce is for, be a REBEL), and eat!

Soy: This is when we start to get into the HARDCORE vegetarian foods. Soy in the form of tofu, in the form
of noodles, in the form of soy sauce! It's all good. Doubtlessly you've heard people say that tofu is tasteless and
bland. If anyone tells you this, they're doing it wrong! Think of tofu as a texture that you must add flavour to with
other things. The simplest way of doing this is to mix it in with a sauce (rice dishes with crispy tofu added to the
sauce (heat it WITH the sauce AFTER cooking it, to allow the tofu to absorb the flavour) makes for an interesting
texture). If at all possible, get a seasoned vegetarian to cook you up a flavourful tofu-based meal, and then teach you
the tricks of the trade.

Fake (meat): We're talking microtextured protein-based foods here, Quorn and the like. They can be used
similarly to tofu, but you'll probably get the most out of them if you choose the prepared kinds. You'll probably want
to include a few of these in your diet if you're a newbie, since they'll probably be fortified with the kinds of
nutrients you'll be missing out on.

Beans, nuts, cashews, etc: These are generally good source of protein and carbohydrate, and you can do a
fair bit with them. If you like the texture of beans, you can add them into pretty much anything and they'll go. Nuts
and cashews are something you can snack on, they're pretty awesome for that. Watch the salt though, if you're that way
inclined

And the 6th dubious one: Diary: If you're a vegan, you won't be into this, but if you're plain' ol'
vegetarian, you might find dairy/eggs based meals good. Eggs are good for protein, obviously. I've never been much into
cheese-based meals myself, and they're not the healthiest ever, but still, some like them, so I felt I should include
it!

So, there you have it. Look up some meals involving those ingredients (in a pinch you should be able to improvise off
of what you know with pasta/rice already), and experiment. If you come up with something bland or a bit off, don't be
discouraged. Cohesive diets are not built in a day! The meat diet you had (if you did) was probably built and refined
over generations, so you've got a bit of catching up to do.

A few things to watch out for:

Gelatin: This is basically a bunch of things that don't go into meat, boiled down and made into a gel.
Horses hooves, stuff like that. It's used in a lot of chewy confectionery and in some dessert mouses. If you're a
vegetarian you generally watch out for it in places it's likely to be.
E120, or Carmine: This is a red dye made out of beetles. It's in smarties and m'n'ms, and a bunch of other
things to. You might not be too worried about beetles, but then again you might, so figure that one out for
yourself

A final word: Hell is other people
If you're going vegetarian, there will be some people who will give you shit for it. If you're lucky, these won't be
the people who control your diet or who you have to eat with, otherwise you might find yourself in a bit of a battle,
and that's never fun. One guideline to always adhere to: if you're visiting someone, inform them preferably in advance
of your dietary preferences. This should avoid every vegetarian's dread: being served up a heavily based and lovingly
prepared meat dish and having to say "Sorry.. I can't eat this". You'll probably also want to tell them you don't eat
fish (if you do eat fish... well... don't tell them you don't, I suppose, and if you're a moral vegetarian, rethink
your ideas about our aquatic friends :P).

People will inevitably ask you "Why are you a vegetarian?". It's easy to be frustrated by this question, because quite
a few people will be waiting for something to pounce on, and even if they don't you'll be imagining what they're
thinking if you've gone through that ordeal enough times. Important things: don't be judgemental, don't give them any
cause to hate on you anymore, and most of all don't get beat. The fundamental question is this: do you view animal life
worth enough to consider ending it unjustifiable. Any other questions are superfluous, especially when people are
looking to get a rise out of you.

Many people view vegetarians as elitist bastards. Many vegetarians view meat-eaters as complicit-in-murderous bastards.
Don't let either of these stereotypes get the better of you! If you become the latter, you'll cause more people to
believe the former. If someone asks you why you're a vegetarian, give them your reasons, and nothing more /unless/
they're genuinely interested. You might find people agreeing with you. If you find someone receptive, don't hold back
in giving them your perspective. Again, if you find someone being a bastard about it, don't let them upset you if you
can help it. If onlookers see you as being the fair and decent person, they're more likely to side with you.

Anyway, I just felt that was an important thing to discuss, as all vegetarians come across it at some point. If you
need something to bolster you, ask yourself how ignorant or purposefully malicious someone must be to give you abuse
for trying to avoid what you see as murder. It's not as if they're losing anything is it?

And that's the end!

Enjoy your new diet!