Congratulations! You have just taken the first step towards one of the best choices you can make for yourself, animals and the planet. This guide is packed with info, tips and recipes to help you establish eating habits that you will feel great about.

Going vegetarian has never been easier. The explosion of vegetarian foods and the increased availability of inter-continental cuisines, such as Italian, Thai, Chinese and Lebanese foods, means that you can have a different vegetarian meal every day of the year! You might start one day with a vegetable medley tossed in a peanut sauce, enjoy a creamy mushroom soup for lunch and have a black bean-and-mushroom stir-fry for dinner. The next day, you could try a Western-style breakfast of baked beans, have Chinese noodles for lunch and end the day with a colourful confetti rice salad with mung dal soup.

Vegetarian food is not just a treat for your taste buds – it is great for your health too. Leading scientists are now proving that what we eat directly affects the quality of our lives. While animal foods contribute to cancer, heart disease, obesity and many other killers, a vegetarian diet can make us healthier. With the right food selections, you can have clearer skin, lose weight permanently, prevent heart attacks and even reverse existing heart disease. Studies have shown that vegetarians have stronger immune systems than meat-eaters and are far less likely to die of heart disease or cancer. The consumption of meat and dairy products is also linked to diabetes, arthritis, osteoporosis, clogged arteries, obesity, asthma and impotence. Additionally, as deadly animal-borne diseases such as SARS, mad cow disease and avian flu spread across the globe, adopting a meat-free diet is now more important than ever.

A vegetarian diet helps animals. Modern high-pressure agriculture commonly keeps cows, calves, pigs, chickens and other animals in extremely crowded stalls, cages, crates or sheds in which they are often unable to turn around or take even a single step in any direction for their entire lives. Deprived of veterinary care, exercise, sunlight and the feel of grass beneath their feet, these living, breathing, thinking, feeling beings, whose senses are so similar to ours, suffer and die at a rate of millions per day just so that we can eat meat. When we eat, we have a choice between adding to the level of violence in the world or respecting animals and eating vegetarian instead.

It is easy to live and let live, and this guide will show you how.

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