Intro

I am in my last year at UC Irvine, and throughout my college career I have been a vegetarian. Often times when someone finds out I am a vegetarian, they put me through a series of similar questions such as:
What made me decide to become vegetarian?
How long have I been vegetarian?
What do I eat?
Do I miss eating meat?
Am I ever going to eat meat again?
So I have decided that I will first and foremost answer these in order to clear the air.
I have been a vegetarian since August 2004, which makes it just over three years now. My becoming vegetarian was not something that I planned out or had even really thought about before hand, it just sort of happened…my best friend in high school had been vegetarian since her freshman year, and although I never paid much attention to this fact, another mutual friend of ours found it to be quite interesting. So interesting in fact that shortly after we graduated from high school she decided that she herself wanted to try being a vegetarian. I was with her this day and we were talking about it and about all the different pros and cons that we could think of, although at this time we really had no clue about anything. We had heard that it was a healthier way to live and that it was nice for animals. Based on these two facts, she stated that she really wanted to do it but was not really sure if she could without any sort of support system or anything since it was such a drastic change.
After we had been talking about it, I began to think that maybe being vegetarian would be a good change for me too..I had never been a very healthy eater and perhaps this would help change my bad habbits..so I volunteered to go vegetarian with her and we could support each other. And so it began. I remember going home and telling my mother and she thought I was being ridiculous and that it would never last. But now, even though she herself is not vegetarian, she will always make sure that I have something to eat when I go home and she will even get me vegetarian magazines from time to time so that I may try knew recipes.
Do I miss meat? Yes I do sometimes, although at this point in my life meat is not even thought of as food to me anymore. It is hard to explain but it is as if I have been a herbivore all my life and the thought if eating meet seems very out of place to me. I do miss it however because I know there were certain things that I used to enjoy very much, even though I do not remember what those things taste like anymore, but I know that I did like it once.
Despite this, I do not believe that I will ever eat meat again. I do know that many people who are vegetarian or even vegan for years will convert back to meat eating, but I personally do not think it is for me. As I mentioned before, the idea of eating meat seems very out of place to me now, and maybe this does not happen to everyone that stops eating meat, but I do not think that I could get myself in the mindset to eat meat again.
Soo, what do I eat? This is a question I have been asked countless times, and I still have yet to come up with a good answer because really I never know what to say. Not because I cannot think of things that I eat, but because I do not know what they expect me to say. I guess it is just a confusing question to me because there are so many things besides meat that I do not really understand how they expect me to answer that question simply. So for now I will say I eat everything except for meat, which is a hell of a lot of food.
And I guess everything I have to say after this will further explain that question…as I write about different places that I like to eat as a vegetarian. Although I do not find it hard to eat at restaurants, it can still be nice to go to places that target vegetarians or vegans specifically, so that for once you can choose from anything on the menu. Weather you are vegetarian, vegan, or a hard-core meet eater; I will be searching for places that, as a vegetarian, I found to have good meals. Hopefully no matter what your specialty is, you will be able to enjoy some of these paces and meals that I discover.