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Your only 14, if you want to become a vegetarian/vegan wait until your body is done growing somewhat.

Telling your mom you want to be a vegetarian is better than telling her you want to be a trigender pyrofox. brownie points for knowing reference

The best advice I can give is bring up your ethical / sustainability concerns with your mother.
Demonstrate that you have given the issue careful thought by talking it over with her, share what you see as the positives and negatives of it.
Ask what she see's as the pros and cons. Also, see if there is a middle ground.

TL;DR - Do your research and have an intelligent conversation about the pros and cons with your mother!
You don't need to say "Hi Mom, I don't want to eat meat!"
Instead say "Hi Mom, I learned about sustainability in school and I worry about how much meat we have in our diet." (blah blah)

Either way, good luck!

It's not the end of the world, you know. I'm a vegetarian for three years now and I think that it will soon change into a vegan diet. First weeks might be tough ("cooking just for one person is annoying!" "fish isn't meat at all!" "you will die! :D" and so on), but after a while if you will be consistent she will get use to it. It's one of the think I love to explain - vegetarian diet isn't about "you can't eat something". It's about you don't want to eat something because you believe that we should minimise our cruelty against animals.

HITLER WAS VEGAN AND HE WAS VERY EVIL MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN

(I haven't read all the replies, so may be repeating something.)

I think that your mother will be able to accept this if you show her that you're adult about it, that is, you understand the consequences of your decision.

First thing is, understand what you will be missing in your diet, and how you can get that back.

Second thing is, understand that a different diet from the rest of your family means extra work preparing food and buying suitable groceries. As skanda said, offering to do some work, instead of just going for "here's my new diet, deal with it" is likely to make your choice a lot more acceptable.

You don't have to know all this in advance, but showing that you understand what your decision entails and discussing that with your mother is likely to make her appreciate your choice.

It's hard to advise you on the best way to mention it to her, without knowing her personality and how likely she is to be supportive or resistant to the idea, but sincerity in stating what you want and why will go a long way. Assuming that she's the one who prepares meals for the family, be aware that at least part of the time, it may be imposing an inconvenience on her since it isn't always easy to simply remove the meat portion from your plate (like in a lasagne, for instance). Offering to make your own meals in cases like this and even helping with grocery lists (so that she won't have to be the one to figure out what you will and won't eat) may help a lot to show that you're serious and make things much easier for her.

Going vegetarian (or even completely plant-based) is easy to do, but you'll also want to educate yourself a bit if you haven't already. You'll need a vitamin B12 supplement as it mainly comes from a bacteria in soil that animals ingest, but isn't present in plants. This gives a good explanation of why a 2500 microgram supplement once a week is sufficient. Also, it will be good to know what foods to combine (grains and legumes, for instance) to give you "complete" proteins that provide all of the essential amino acids (although you don't even need to have them together in the same meal).

One thing that you may hear criticism and/or concern about is the mistaken belief that without meat, your diet will suddenly be lacking in protein, but our bodies actually require much less protein than most seem to think, and plants have more than most seem to be aware of. We go through the largest growth spurt in our lives as infants, doubling our body weight in half a year solely on breast milk, which (as a percentage of calories) is only 6% protein. Even white rice, which is generally thought to be just carbohydrate, has more than that at 8%. This might be of interest to you. Also, consider that the largest land animals (bison, giraffes, rhinos, hippos, elephants) are all herbivores. I doubt that a 13,000 pound elephant ever wonders if he's getting enough protein in his diet. ;)

she will be disapointed.. =(

so you think plants aren't live essers too?.... what an idiot thing vegetarian omnivore or carnivore.......

just eat. if you become vegetarian at that young age you will regret in the future you need vitamins etc....

humans are omnivors not herbivors.

I understand the concern in trying to communicate your desires. That is a whole other issue other than becoming a vegetarian.

Honestly, I would NOT recommend becoming a vegetarian UNTIL you have become an adult. This is because you are still growing as a teenager and your body is demanding a lot of protein (that is VERY difficult to get as a vegetarian) that is necessary for your growth and health.

Uh... just tell her? I'm surprised by most of the responses here. My brother's been cooking extra/separate food for my niece for a few years now. Unless you have some reason to think she'll disown you for not wanting to eat meat ;)

There was good advice in here about making sure you get enough nutrients from various sources but ultimately there's plenty of information out there to help you along. Good luck with the new diet!

You're in your growth period, and you want to hamper your own growth? Madness.

If I had a son/daughter who told me like this when he/she is under my wing, I'd teach him/her a proper lesson.

if you really want to do it, then do it. i have a lot of respect for your decision. and i believe many more people (including myself) should do it. i am surprised how many people here tell you stuff like we're supposed to eat meat and whatnot. as if humans live naturally. we stopped doing that a long time ago. and we're able to live very well without meat. all you have to do is eat the stuff you need. you can easily compensate for what's missing if you don't eat meat anymore. just read a lot about it and try to maintain a more or less balanced diet. i am sure you can do it. a few of my friends are vegetarians. and honestly, they're healthier than me. the problem with us humans is, in order to live as naturally as we're supposed to, we kill so many animals in a very unnatural and inhumane way. and i am glad there are people like you who try to actively do something against that. at this young age even. i really should think about becoming a vegetarian myself. tried it a few times. never lasted long.

Just tell her that you want to try a new life style, and you will really need/love to have her support on this matter. Hopefully everything will go smoothly, and if you face some opposition just ask her for at least 3 months of her help, and if after 3 months she still opposes it then you will reconsider (hey, it's better than nothing I guess).

More meat for me. tia

I personally believe that this kind of decision can only be taken by adults. I can't support a minor to make this kind of decision.

Growing bodies and developing brains need meat, feel free to tell but I can tell you your doctor won't like the idea.

Be prepared for a lot of supplements and veggies you don't like just so you can get the nutrients you need.