<p>nymomof2, you should be very proud of your son for feeling passionately about animal rights. It is refreshing to know that our young people have the capacity to follow through on a cause they believe in. My D is a vegetarian and she started out exactly like your son, learning about the plight of animals. It is a work in progress. It has been approx 5 yrs now and she is getting better and better at finding the right nutrition. Tofu, lentils, eggs, cheese with grains, brown rice, whole grain pastas and green leafy vegetables in any combination as possible. It is also easy to fall in a trap of eating too many bad carbs to counteract the loss of meat.
Trader Joe’s is one of her favorite places to shop, because it has a lot of vegeterian/vegan friendly combinations and choices. They also carry printed list of their products that are strictly vegetarian(looking at the ingredients) which makes shopping easy. Did you know gelatin is a meat product? so they take a lot of the guesswork out shopping. As time goes by, there will be a rhythm as far are meal preparation. It was a challenge to have a vegetarian in the house becasue H and I love our chicken, fish and burgers but as she got older she took more and more responsibility for her own food preparation, which I think is important. It is easy to be a vegetarian if someone else is preparing your food, it is another story when you commit yourself to being a vegetarian and have to prepare it yourself. It takes planning and if your son is serious this is when it will be apparent.</p>