Flexitarian Eating: Balancing Meat and Plant Based Meals

As you may notice, flexitarian combines the words flexible and vegetarian. Flexitarian eating is defined as a flexible alternative to vegetarianism, meaning you can stick to your diet of fruits, vegetables, grains, and nuts while still occasionally having a bit of meat if you wish. Combining the benefits of being a vegetarian with treating meat the same way any person on a diet treats dessert, flexitarian eating allows you to have your cake and eat it too.

Defining Flexitarian Eating

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In a flexitarian diet, the goal is to eat more nutritious vegetables than meat, although you can still allow yourself some animal protein consumption. Flexitarian eating is one of the easer, healthier kinds of diets to follow, somewhat similar to paleo or caveman diets, which are based on foods presumably eaten by early humans who first walked the earth. The major difference between the two is that paleo diets focus more on meat, while flexitarian ones focus on more plant-based foods, similar to vegetarian diets.

Benefits

The nutritional benefits of flexitarian eating include the typical weight loss along with reduced risks of heart disease and Type 2 diabetes. This diet may also help prevent cancer, although you should take into account that people's bodies may react differently to this diet and thus this is not a guarantee.

Flexitarian eating can also provide environmental and other health benefits. Fruit and vegetable consumption are often less taxing on the environment than cooking meat usually is. Growing your own fruits and vegetables in a small garden or in pots around balconies or windowsills can create a good environment for any cottage core lovers; vertical gardens can also be pretty good workouts in themselves. Tending these gardens can boost your mental health and help you create a safe, cozy home environment.

Risks

Flexitarian eating can pose health risks depending on how your body reacts to it. As the diet consists largely of plant-based foods, you could experience deficiencies in certain nutrients like iron and B12 that are more commonly found in animal meat. The heavily plant-based diet might also not sit well with someone who has irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) or allergic reactions, no matter how small, to certain fruits or gluten. It's best to ask a dietitian whether flexitarian eating is suitable for you before you try it.

Flexitarian Meals for Beginners

There's no need to assume that this diet consists only of salads. Remember, the main point of flexitarian eating is to reduce your meat consumption, not erase it; basically, treat meat like candy and just eat more meals without it. Here are some suggested types of meals you can have without meat and some that have just a little bit of it.

• Breakfast: Instead of peanut butter with banana on top of sliced bread, boil some potatoes and eggs to put on top instead. Put the eggs in ice water for easy peeling. Drain the sweet or regular potatoes first, then mash them as soft as you can. Pour a bit of dairy or plant-based milk (your choice, since this isn't a vegan diet) into the mixture to make it smoother. Mix and smear that on your whole wheat slice of toast. Add some salt and pepper and put some lightly over-toasted nuts or seeds in it if you like it chunky.
• Lunch: Yogurt is a pretty easy go-to for lunch as it's light and convenient, though it might be too sweet for someone who has a low sugar tolerance. Wash some strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries and then peel small tangerines; put these all in the freezer overnight. Take them out and chop them into a bowl, add a banana, mash them all together into a jam, then add some lightly oven-roasted nuts and seeds.
• Supper: Cook some plain rice in a rice cooker with lots of water, or just get a pot, put the plain rice in there, add lots of water, and leave it to sit on low heat. (Remember, rice will expand quickly.) In a pan, cook some beans with chopped broccoli and cucumbers over vegetable oil, add salt and pepper or garlic powder, and eat that with your rice soup.
• Dinner: If you still have some water left over from the rice soup you made, use that to cook some pasta. While it's boiling, chop some tomatoes and onions, add minced garlic, and put it all in the same pan used for beans and broccoli earlier. Get a cabbage head, chop 1/4th of it off, and put the rest back in the fridge. Chop the small side into strips, add that to your pan mixture, and stir-fry it, letting the cabbage breathe to avoid letting it go bad.

Slowly Adding Meat Back To Your Meals

A good way to control your meat consumption would be to try this trick of making lots of meatballs, weighing them to jot down how many ounces each one is, and then putting them all in the freezer. After 6-8 meatless meals, you can slowly begin adding a bit of meat by controlling the number of meatballs you take out of the freezer, remembering to count the ounces of each meatball.

For example, make a vegetable soup and drop a couple of meatballs in. Another thing to try is to get a pan, put a couple meatballs in, and mash them into bits. The add in chopped onion strips, diced tofu, and peeled and diced pumpkin. You'll find that meatballs make cooking more convenient and keeping track of ounces of meat consumed easier.

When beginning a flexitarian diet, remember that you start with being allowed to have 26 ounces of meat a week. You can keep reducing the amount of meat you eat as you continue. Listen to your body as you adopt this diet; if you feel that you may need meat for nutrients, go ahead and eat some.

Conclusion

Though also a mainly plant-based diet, flexitarian eating was created specifically for anyone who's not able, ready, or interested in committing to a fully vegetarian or vegan diet. Flexitarian diets still offer several of the same benefits than vegetarian and vegan diets do and allow you to incorporate some meat to fulfill other nutritional needs. Overall, the goals of a flexitarian diet are for you to eat well, stay healthy, and make yourself happy.

Disclaimer: This article is intended simply to provide information. It does not replace the medical advice of a physician. Please speak with your doctor if you have any questions or concerns.

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Article originally written by Ashley Yin.