Flexitarianism

Yep, this is what I am these days. Urban Dictionary gives a couple definitions for the word, but the one that I like (and have decided to apply to myself) is:

"some one who essentially eats just vegetables (as well as fish, eggs & milk) who's not too uptight about eating meat ocaisionally [sic] as a matter of convenience; a lenient vegetarian."

We talked about becoming a vegetarian household, but we realized that's pretty much what we do anyway. For the most part, the meals we eat at home are already vegetarian: chilis, soups, eggplant parmagian, veggie pot pies, tortes, and quiches, veggie fried rices, tacos and burritos, tons of Indian dishes, the list goes on. I don't cook much red meat at all...I can't remember the last time I bought pork (except bacon, which I love, I'll admit). I probably cook chicken or fish once or maybe twice a week, at most. Many weeks, I cook no meat.

So instead of setting a strict rule that we'd be tempted to break, we decided we'd become flexitarians. This just means that we'll begin cooking even less meat than we already do. When we go to a restaurant for dinner (for us, this is probably twice a month, on average), we'll order what we want. If we come to your house for dinner, we'll eat what you serve us.

Killing animals does kind of gross me out, but I'll be honest, the main reason for going "flexitarian" is a combination of health and environmental reasons. Neither of these necessarily requires an "all or nothing" approach - my health and especially the environment will be better off if I eat less meat. Obviously, the environment would be even better off if I ate none at all, but something is better than nothing, and what is more important than the extent of the changes I make is my ability to make them long-lasting changes, rather than short term ones. For a detailed explanation of some of the reasons why eating meat is not great for the environment, check out the GoVeg site - one of the biggest reasons for me is that it takes 16 pounds of grain to produce one pound of meat (the chickens and cows have to eat before they become meat, right?) - at a time when there are food shortages all over the world, this becomes especially important for me to at least reflect on.

Eating quality meat can be very pricey, especially if your only option for purchasing it is a conventional grocery store. I think we'll see quite a significant savings on our grocery bills now that I've stopped buying meat - we'll finish up what we have in the freezer, since it's bought and paid for, and the resources to produce it have already been consumed. Normally when I'd clean out the freezer though, I'd do a big meat shopping to stock it again - that would always be a very expensive shopping.

Like so many of my other decisions about changes to how I'm living my life, this is ultimately a personal choice, as it must for everybody. Unfortunately, some people will decide that eating meat fourteen times a week is their right. It is their right to make that choice. Others may decide that they can go vegetarian, or totally vegan, or that they can go meatless once a month or once a week. Bean Sprouts was challenging readers in April to try a vegetarian meal - Whole Foods Spicy Vegetarian Chili is one of my recent favorites, if you're looking for inspiration.

Others may decide that they want to continue to eat meat once a day, but will decrease their portion sizes - for more on this, check out Blue Collar Crunch's Diet for Global Hunger Action. As this New York Times article from 1918 explains, Americans in the past have consciously cut consumption to help those in need. Now might be a good time to give that some serious thought once again.

For us, the flexitarian option is great...everything in moderation, after all. It's just that moderation is being redefined.