Welcome to Gaia! ::

-Is there a friend or family member who you could give your frozen meats to?
-Do you have a pet you could cook it up for?
-Maybe you could throw a party and serve the rest of the meat?
-Are there any homeless people near you? There are a couple spots in the city not too far from me where a couple homeless people almost always are. Sometimes people give them leftovers or buy them a pizza. If there is a spot like that near you you could cook it up and bring it to them.

As for telling your friends why you made the switch to veg, well, you can tell the truth or you can lie. You can tell them you couldn't live with the cruelty of the meat industry anymore. You could tell them meat is linked to heart disease, which is the number one killer in America right now, and you want to start living healthier. You could show them articles about how bad meat is and how much better a veg diet is. You could tell them your doctor told you to lay off the meat for your health. You could tell them you got food poisoning from some meat and pretty much got turned off to it after that. You can even avoid the word "vegetarian" if you want and instead say "avoiding meat" or "cutting back on meat."

It's up to you. I don't usually recommend lying, but I know what it can be like to be embarrassed about changing your ways and to have people around you think vegetarianism is silly. And I think vegetarianism is such an important life choice that if a lie can make it easier for you to stick with it, so be it! wink

Everyone has given great advice so far. I can understand the fear of telling your friends part since they know you as an advocate for omnivores. I'm the exact opposite; I'm an omnivore that advocates vegetarianism but working on changing the former part. wink You won't be able to get away without telling them for long if you go out to eat or they make something for you, but you could just simply tell them you're changing your diet for ethical reasons, and they may understand. You can also just ease around it with the suggestions Lorien gave. I like the "I'm just easing off eating meat to see what it's like" kind of reason because, well, it's true. You can also just pull out "I'm just checking to see what this vegetarian hype is all about" and claim that you're just doing research for your omnivorism advocacy. Then pull a CS Lewis and say that doing the research opened your mind and made you decide to change, and why. You might even persuade them to try it out if they see it changed your mind through personal experience.

As for the meat, depending on what meat you have, you might check to see if there is a local wildlife rehabilitation center that would accept a donation of meat. The place I volunteer at is always looking for meat, sometimes even lunch meat or hamburger to feed to the opossums for protein when we're low on minnows. But call ahead first to see what they'll take. You can find a list of links on the National Wildlife Rehabilitation Association's website here: http://nwrawildlife.org/page.asp?ID=214 or you can PM me your city and state and I can look in my membership directory and give you some contact info. Otherwise, you could keep it around and if you find transitioning from omni to veg "cold turkey" is becoming difficult, you can slowly use it as a transition to becoming veg and wean yourself off. And of course, you can always give it to friends or family that could use it.

But I think I can say from all of us that we're glad you're making a great life choice! You'll find lots of support here and hopefully a lot of information that will keep you on the right track. You can always ask if you need help! Good luck!

Thank you everyone for your help and suggestions I really appreciate it heart
I managed to give some meat to my brother the other day telling him I was running out of room in the freezer (which is true) and since he is too lazy to go shopping he jumped at the opportunity. Unfortunately he doesn't eat chicken or lamb so I couldn't offload all the contents of my freezer on him. I am hoping that I will be able to slowly get rid of the rest by giving little bits to my dogs as treats. Problem solved *claps hands* mrgreen

I have heard of agar before but I haven't seen it in shops. Is it possible I might be able to find it in an asian grocery store or would I have to go searching elsewhere for it?

As to telling my friends and family I am still at a loss. I think my friends would be alright with the news as long as it didn't come suddenly but I don't like the thought of telling my family. Whilst I don't need their support in my decision I would prefer it if they wouldn't add this to the long list of things to tease me about. I have to rule out the idea of outright lying to them as I cannot and will not do that and even the idea of bending the truth doesn't feel right to me. The best I can do for now is not say anything at all until I can think of a way or build up the courage to tell them. sweatdrop

Anyway thanks again to everyone who replied. You guys are great biggrin