Flexitari what?

Flexitarian. Join the new revolutionary movement that will steer America towards a level of higher consciousness. If you are a meat eater, becoming a flexitarian is acknowledging that the health of your body and the health of your environment is important, and that if you take care of them, they will take care of you.

What Is It?

What is a flexitarian and why would you be interested in adopting this dietary lifestyle? A flexitarian is someone who consumes mostly vegetarian meals, with the occassional meat. For instance, someone who eats primarily vegetarian meals on a daily basis, but eats some meat just 1,2, or 3 times a week is a flexitarian. Thus, meat is no longer a primary focus of any meal, it is used only as a side complement to a meal, and it is not used for every meal.

Why Should I Care?

Simply put, flexitarianism provides a degree of advantages that a vegetarian lifestyle provides, without having to be committed to abstain totally from meat. The advantages is to your health, to the environment, and to the animals.

First I will go over just some of the many health advantages of following the fexitarian dietary lifestyle. I'll leave the environmental and animal welfare issues to a later post.

Part I, Your Health

The only source of dietary cholesterol is through animal products. By reducing your consumption of animal products by half or more, you are reducing your cholesterol from food sources by half or more. This, in turn, will have positive effects on your long-term health by reducing your chances of having cardiovascular disease. This means less chances of high blood pressure, heart attacks, and strokes.

Certain types of common cancers are also highly influenced by our diet. Colorectal cancer is one of them, and there have been several studies that show a direct link to eating red meat and processed meat and having colorectal cancer. In the U.S., colorectal cancer is the 3rd most common type of cancer. The studies show that the more red meat you eat, the higher chances you have of getting this cancer. For men, the chances are double if they eat 3 ounces of red meat a day, and for women their chances double if they eat 2 ounces of red meat per day. Just to give you perspective of the quantity, a typical burger from Red Robins has 6 ounces of red meat. I give you several references here:

Medicinenet
WebMD
Tufts University

And it is not just colorectal cancer. Other studies have shown that there is a correlation between higher meat consumption and some other cancers as well.

Another health reason to eat more vegetarian meals is that, yes your parents were right, vegetables are good for you. By eating more vegetables, you are also consuming more fiber (in addition to some vital vitamins), which has been shown to have multiple health benefits. To find out more about fiber, read here:

Harvard University

As there are so many health-related issues to mention, we will continue this discussion on an ongoing basis.