But where do you get all your nutrients?

Okay, I admit it. I too used to think that vegetarians were lacking in nutritional elements. Don't you need protein? Don't you need calcium? Yes and yes... and yes you can get plenty of these nutrients without eating meat or dairy products. Our country has one of the highest rates of osteoperosis in the world. We also have a very high consumption of dairy and high protein animal products. The real irony here is the more protein you consume, the more calcium is drained from your bones leading to lower bone density and, in the future, higher incidence of hip fracture. Protein is not only found in meat and dairy. It is in everything, including fruits, veggies, beans, and whole grains. As long as you have a well balanced diet including generous amounts of these foods, you will get plenty of nutrients. So don't worry about us vegetarians when it comes to protein and calcium!

I also want to include this excerpt from The World Peace Diet by Will Tuttle, PhD:

"It's ironic that the burden of justifying possible nutritional deficiencies rests on vegans ("where do you get your protein/vitamin B-12, etc"), because research shows that vegans typically have twice the fruit and vegetable intake of people eating the standard American diet. In recent studies, vegans had higher intakes of sixteen out of the nineteen nutrients studied, including three times more vitamin C, vitamin E and fiber, twice the folate, magnesium, copper, and manganese, and more calcium and plenty of protein... Vegans also had half the saturated fat intake, one-sixth the rate of being overweight, and... people eating the standard American diet were at risk for deficiencies in seven nutrients (calcium, iodine, vitamin C, vitamin E, fiber, folate, and magnesium)."