My ex-girlfriend's bad habits pretty much stayed on her side of the fence, except for her militant vegetarianism, which snuck under the slats.  She was a charming type who would say things like "meat -- it's what's rotting in your colon!" and the like whenever I'd sneak a hot dog from Hot Dog Heaven down the street.  I got in a few half-hearted jabs back, like when she was looking at a PETA ad for a Veggie Baby sweater ("What, does it taste like a real meat baby?"), but the damage was done: for the past few years I've gone a few days at a time without eating any meat.

Well, meat meat.  You know.  That red stuff people throw on grills.  But when I get jonesing because of low protein levels, an innocent hard-boiled egg suffers somewhere.  Or an inert piece of fish.  Or maybe even some chicken.  Because that's one of the biggest side effects of being a vegetarian: a lack of easy-to-find protein, or at least enough to get you through the day.

But there are other side effects too.  They're not deadly, like when you shovel down steak after steak, year after year, but they're inconvenient, and counter to what you might expect from the serene stereotype of a vegetarian.

First of all, there's all the salt and fat in processed "oh you wish you were meat" products, like veggie sausage, turkey, and so on.  It's a big tradeoff for a little flavor, sometimes with 1000mg (1 gram) of salt in a serving.  Lugging all that salt around can bloat someone when body water becomes salt water; it's how cattle traders made more money by the pound, by "watering down" their stock.  And even though it's wholesome-sounding vegetable fat, your body sees it as plain old fat.

Another small loss is easily maintained blood sugar.  Eating fruit can offset a small imbalance, but it can often make it worse, especially if it's the only readily available thing to eat.  And since it's not convenient to just tear into a green pepper at the office, it can make people with blood sugar issues a little erratic.  Fortunately a little experimentation can keep a vegetarian diet running on its own.

And a last inconvenience is that eating fruits and vegetables all the time runs the risk of turning the most serene, cosmically attuned being into a hideous gasbag, ready to detonate at the slightest bump, jostle, or romantic movement. 

How do I know? Don't look at me... I was eating hot dogs at the time. ;D