Me and my vegetarianism

Ive just been looking through the veggie forum that Im part of and came across a thread on the stupid things omnivores say so I thought I would write a little blog about me and my decision to not eat meat.
This really is spurned by a conversation last weekend with the woman who came over here with my mum, my mum obviously told her I was a vegetarian so she told me her mum was a vegan and that she thinks she only does it to make life harder for the rest of the family lol. She proceeded to tell me that she was a big cheese fan and loved fish. I didnt know what to say, it tops my mums 'well my friend is a vegetarian and she eats chicken, why cant you?' Some people just really dont get it, not just my reasoning but the definition of a vegetarian.
How hard is it to understand no meat or meat bi products, granted you sometimes dont realise there are meat bi products in things. My mum goes on to tell people that Im a vegetarian and I dont eat gelatine or anything like that... that its a special kind of vegetarian.
My cousin tells me constantly that she is sort of a vegetarian because if she didnt eat meat then she would only eat other things, but then 'I dont like vegetables' I shake my head.
Im constantly dumbfounded by the number of muslims who tell me its unislamic.. what?? its unislamic to want to care for the health of animals in our society? hmm... 'oh, but its halal? well why didnt you say so, pass me the steak!!' People have even told me its haram, because Im making something haram for myself that Allah has said is halal... Now those who know me in real life will know I dont push my food opinions on anyone else, I try to make things as easy as possible for those who are eating around me, I dont not allow people to eat meat around me and I definately dont tell people that eating meat is haram. So whats your opinion??

Start from the beginning.. I became a vegetarian before I became muslim.. yes it isnt something that was forced upon me by my choice of religion. I had known a girl from school who had died from vCJD when she was 18, since the mad cow scare I rarely ate beef, I was never a bird or pig fan but I did love my lamb. When I started uni lamb was the expensive meat so I never really ate it and in my second year I was living with a vegetarian friend from my first year. In my third year I moved down south for my placement year and for some reason I decided, 'ok its now or never' my mum was moving after at some point that year, I was away from everyone.. from questions and confrontation so I went for it. Its funny I always thought that I had done it with islam in the back of my mind but I cut it out within a few weeks of living down there before I even started looking into islam :D
Ive never liked how animals were treated, coped in little pens with nowhere to go, birds breaking their legs because they had grown so big from hormone injections. Vegetarian animals being fed meat products which spread BSE to the great lengths that we remember back in the 90's. What bugs me is all the stupid things people say to me, my mum acts like its a disease that she has to tell people just so they are aware, my family constantly ask 'you still vegetarian?' people its been 7 years!!! and no i wont eat marshmallows or the jelly sweets youre offering me!! no I didnt do it for somebody and yes I believe it what Im doing.
Will I eat meat again? Allahu alim! but I will tell you this for sure, there will be stipulations for the meat if I ever eat it again. It will have been hand reared by me, in my little field at the back of my house... obviously I cant really see that happening here so I guess I will have to wait to leave this country, or never eat meat :D simple.
So any questions? comments? feel free and thanks for reading :D