Going vegetarian when eating out.

[BaileyB]

Has anyone done this? Was it a hard habit to break?

We raise all our own meat and eggs along with a lot of other food we eat and I keep wanting to do this out of food safety concerns, humanely-treated-animals concerns, and general health concerns.

Any info or input is appreciated.

[Sol_y_Paz]

I am not a vegetarian as I eat fish and 5% of the time chicken and 0% red meat.  I don't find it difficult and eating out is not hard.  We generally avoid most fast food places though.  BBQ and heavy on the meat places can get tricky but they usually do have big baked potatoes and salads.  

[mumkimum]

I am vegetarian, but I did this initially myself out of those same reasons for several years (only we didn't raise our own foodstuffs, etc.).  

You are kinda limited in some situations, but it's really workable in most cases.  You'll get a feel for which kinds of places you get a more satisfying vegetarian meal (ie. I favor ethnic places and eating out for breakfast over a traditional deli.)  

If you're doing it with reasoning, it'll become habit easily enough, IMO.  And make it flexible, like a 'we generally eat vegetarian when we're out' as opposed to 'we have to. . .'.  As important as your concerns are about your food and your choices about it, eating is fun and should satisfy what you want too.       

[EnviroBecca]

I've been usually eating vegetarian in restaurants for the past 10 years.  There are some that make it difficult to find anything to order or anything that has protein, but in general it's not so hard.  What worked for me was just deciding to do it (we gave up all meat, including fish, for Lent) and thus forcing myself to seek out the veg options on menus.

In diner-type restaurants, I usually get a "breakfast" meal with eggs--but of course eggs often are factory farmed, too....

I second the recommendation of "ethnic" restaurants i.e. Chinese, Indian, Mexican--they usually have tasty veg options.  Panera has a good selection of veg soups.  "Hippie coffeehouse" type places often have hummus, baked tofu wraps, and such.

[rebirth]

I used to do this. Now I favor places that use local/sustainable products, wild cought fish, etc. I still often eat veg in restaurants because of the same reasons you posted! But my area has a ton of great restaurants that serve pastured, local meat options so we go there mainly.