its not hard to get all the proteins you need on a vegetarian diet.
vegan, on the other hand, is a bit "out of tune" with mother nature, and requires the commodities of modern civilization to survive. humans at the individual level might be able to survive the world without civilization as vegans, but its by no means something the entire species could adopt and thrive (take the mass extinction event of about 65,000 years ago in africa, for example. homo sapiens survived on a diet of mostly seafood for potentially a few hundred years). i dont agree with veganism as i feel its a trendy, pop culture fabricated idea that most people use to form their own personal identity and differentiate themselves from others.
i eat meat about once a week, though it might even be more like once every 10 days. i also often consume red meat raw, or just barely seared. i only eat meat from a butcher that only practices humane slaughtering, and gets its animals from pastured, organic practicing farms. given that, i consume everything and anything that has the lowest amount of biomagnified pollution. cows, pigs, goats, quail, camels, whatever, i eat the whole thing, guts and all. on that note, i really cant believe rabbit isnt a mainstay of the american diet! the halal butcher near me has some amazing whole rabbits, the liver is especially tasty. i also make a nice breakfast out of duck hearts once in a while, costs like $1.80 for a 45g protein meal!
i refuse to eat meat in a restaurant that isnt really adamant about advertising where it sources its meat, and only working with farmers who have humane slaughtering and organically raised and pastured animals. ill never eat grain fed beef, and never eat farm factory style animal meat. in fact i rarely eat out as i think most of the food in restaurants is doctored up garbage.
i dont consume milk, though i eat a raw cheese meal perhaps once a month, and have a raw yogurt meal perhaps once a month. i dont consume any pasteurized dairy products. i do consume whey protein isolates from organically raised cows when im bodybuilding. i also take a lot of organic hemp proteins, and drink a fair amount of hemp milk.
most of my proteins come from a cleverly matched diet of vegetables, nuts, legumes, eggs, and grains such as sorghum, barley, oats, millet, quinoa, and buckwheat. i do eat some rye and spelt - though i try to avoid gluten containing grains (esp wheat, fuck USA govt subsidized garbage!).
i used to be a huge seafood eater, but as weve virtually destroyed the oceans, its very difficult to get trusted sources for seafood that isnt loaded with biomagnified heavy metals, bpa/plastic particulate matter, and other toxins we just dump into the ocean like there is no tomorrow. i very rarely eat fish for this reason, and on that note, consume a large amount of naturally chelating vegetable matter (like lots of algae, spirulina, cholerla, heck even excess raw cilantro!).
again, its not difficult to get a bulky amount of proteins from a vegetarian diet. just research the amino acid profile of most of your vegetables, and compliment with something like tempeh, beans/legumes, nuts, etc. youd probably be surprised at how many fruits have very good amino acid profiles.
the thing is, one should be very aware of the function of each food one puts in the body. as Westerners, were trained to be ignorant of these things, so we have to fight against this willfull slavery and understand our place in the greater harmony if the natural world. there is no greater fulfilling hobby than pursuing the understanding of nutrition and its role in physiology and medicine.