I'm not a vegetarian, but I often end up eating vegetarian meals. Meat runs up a grocery bill pretty quickly if you're concerned about the quality and source of your meat in the U.S. Personally I enjoy meat, but in the U.S. I find that the quality of meat is pretty poor. The chicken that people eat is generally flavorless due to being raised on feed and the flesh is disturbingly soft due to living in cages. Even the "free range" chickens tend to be low on flavor from what I've found.

All of these animals need a variety of food sources to be healthy, which means allowing them to browse and eat what they want. I understand why animals aren't raised like this in America, but it's a shame that the state of meat production in the U.S. is so poor. By raising animals in this way, the fats of the animals we generally eat contains very little if any Omega 3 or 6 fats, essentially making the fat completely worthless except as a source of moisture and minimal flavor.

If you get the opportunity to travel to a country where animals are raised in an environment where they can browse for food, (I don't mean free range, because that's just FDA jargon for who-knows-what) with a friend who hasn't traveled much, gauge their reaction to how the meat tastes. If they're used to American food, the reaction will often be that the meat is chewy, or it has a strong animal taste and often they will want "normal" chicken, pork, beef, whatever, not realizing that what they think of as "normal" food is very far from the norm world-wide.

Anyway, sorry for the tangent. I think eating vegetarian is a good option, though there are certain considerations that people should take. For example, soy products are full of plant estrogens, as are canned tomatoes. Iron can also be an issue for people making the transition into vegetarianism as most people who eat meat get quite a lot of it from their food and so don't really think about it. Also, eating seasonally and locally can be tough if you're from an area that suffers from harsh winters. I'd guess though, that as your wife is a vegetarian already, she's probably got that stuff figured out.