Any "laid-back" vegetarians out there?

This is pretty much my tenth "meat-free" day (I clearly remember having about 1 tbsp of turkey pate on the 8th, out of curiosity). I say pretty much because in the meanwhile I`ve still had a couple ham-flavoured cream cheese wedges, which I`m pretty sure had some meat in them.

The thing is, I would love to go veggie, or at least pescatarian (I adore fish!), for the many great benefits. But I just know that completely cutting out certain foods would make me go crazy and probably end up craving and obsessing over them. Also, if I`m eating somewhere else than home and I don`t have veggie protein sources available, I will most likely prefer having some meat rather than eating just a side dish of carbs and fat.

So I am thinking of a resolution to be meat free 99% of the time. If I am curious about the taste of a certain meat, or I am craving an old favourite, I will have a bit. If circumstances don`t allow a healthy veggie alternative, I will eat meat.

I know this is not being vegetarian/pescatarian according to the 'all-or-nothing' definition, but I figure I would still be getting 99% of the health benefits and be helping protect the environment resources 99% of the time, right? Anyone else in the same boat? Please share your stories, experiences, thoughts, advice - anything at all.

There is no such thing as a "laid back vegetarian" at least by your definition. There are certain ingredients that some vegetarians don't pay attention to, for example mono/diglycerides can come from animal or plant sources, but the label never says which, same with rennet for cheese. Some vegetarians will go on and eat it anyway even if they don't know whether it's a plant or animal source. So that's what I'd call a "laid back vegetarian."

If you eat meat at all then you are NOT vegetarian. If you eat fish, and only fish, you are pescatarian. You can say "I don't eat very much meat" but you can't say you're vegetarian even if you only eat it once a month or whatever, And to be honest it's a good way to piss off dedicated vegetarians. There was a girl I knew that said she was vegetarian but still ate seafood- it drove me nuts. There's not an "all or nothing" definition like you stated, vegetarian means NO meat.

By all means, cutting meat even a little bit can help as far as health but like I said just say you don't eat very much meat.

I explained in my post that I was never going to proclaim myself a vegetarian, sorry if I said something to lead you to believe that. It was just a figure of speech. Thanks for your input though. :)

I started off like that actually, I kept eating little bits of meat on occasion even though my diet was largely vegetarian. The more I went on, the less meat I ate and eventually I stopped altogether. I still get the craving every now and then, but ive found that when I do eat meat, its gross, but I can't really digest it and get incredibly constipated!

But my point is that very few people wake up one day and decide to give up meat-for whatever reason, health, ethics etc and there is no reason why being a vegetarian should be all-or-nothing and have these stupid political implications. If you feel you would be healthier from reducing meat and eating a largely vegetarian diet then do it, you don't have to declare for one side or the other!

Original Post by cassie_bee:

But my point is that very few people wake up one day and decide to give up meat-for whatever reason, health, ethics etc and there is no reason why being a vegetarian should be all-or-nothing and have these stupid political implications. If you feel you would be healthier from reducing meat and eating a largely vegetarian diet then do it, you don't have to declare for one side or the other!

 As a vegetarian, I agree that you will reap health benefits by reducing your meat intake. As a vegetarian who woke up one day and decided to give up meat for health and ethics, who believes it is all or nothing when proclaiming a vegetarian lifestyle, and who feels that the "stupid" political implications of it are equally important I would obviously disagree with most of the above statement. If you want an eye opener about some of the political implications, check out the book Skinny Bitch.

OP, as you've probably seen from this post, there are some people who will get prickly if you describe yourself as a vegetarian but still eat meat now and then. But there IS a term for what you're suggesting: flexitarian. That's someone who mostly eats vegetarian but will occasionally eat meat.

And, yes, any decrease in meat eating is good for the environment and good for your health.

According the the book Eat to Live I believe, it states that as long as your diet consists of no more than 10% animal products (meat, dairy, eggs) you receive optimum health benefits.  So if what are you doing is for health reasons, then that's fine... as long as you don't call it being a vegetarian.  You could probably get away with saying you eat mostly vegetarian, as long as you don't say you are one.

I would encourage you to research it, though.  When I first decided to go veg it was for health reasons - but the more I learned about the ethical and environmental implications, it was actually fairly easy for me to "wake up one day" and never eat meat again.  I don't crave it - in fact it really grosses me out.

I actually just woke up one morning and gave up meat as well. I think a lot of vegetarians did it that way. You could always give it a shot, it's a lot easier than i thought it would be.

I wanted to become a vegetarian in the second grade .  However my will power wasn't that great and I broke down two weeks later.  When I was a sophomore in high school I was able to read more about becoming a vegetarian and I started of gradually with cutting out beef, than a week later poultry and then finally seafood, it took one month overall.  I never had to worry about pork because my household wasn't big on it.  I know that because of my history I was able to become a vegetarian without the craving for meat.  My vegan experience was completely opposite.

I know that my fellow vegetarian community gets upset when people call themselves a vegetarian but they really are not.  I was like that when I was younger but now it doesn't bother me the same way.  Just do some research about your diet, terminology etc.  Bottom line you are healthier and helping our environment and that's all that matters.  Good Luck!

Original Post by ily51:

So I am thinking of a resolution to be meat free 99% of the time. If I am curious about the taste of a certain meat, or I am craving an old favourite, I will have a bit. If circumstances don`t allow a healthy veggie alternative, I will eat meat.

Do that! Everything in moderation. If you decided to eat no meat all month and then enjoy a weekend of eating meat or something that might work?

Or eat fish but not meat?

I don't call myself a "laid back vegetarian" but I think I eat similarly to what you have in mind.

Basically, I don't buy meat at the store and I don't order it in restaurants.  I do eat it if I go somewhere and there's not a reasonable option otherwise.  So, this week I ate some chicken at a meeting where dinner was provided and the only veggie option was white rice (I had assumed there'd be a veggie option for the group or else I might have just eaten beforehand) and I know tonight I will be eating a buffalo burger since we are going to a friend's for dinner. 

In other catered situations, say a work event I went to this summer with hot dogs and burgers for lunch, I made a sandwich on a hamburger bun with the "fixins": cheese, lettuce, onions, and tomatoes. So, it's not that I eat meat at every event I go to, only if there's not really a good option otherwise.

I could ask my friend tonight to make me a veggie burger, but since I'm not a vegetarian, I don't feel justified in asking other people to make special arrangements for me, if that makes sense.

Am I a vegetarian? Absolutely not.  Am I positively impacting my health, the environment, and the welfare of animals? I absolutely am.

Thanks for the very helpful comments, everyone!

I know I am dancing on thin ice here and I sure hope no conflicts arise from my post, I`m simply trying to get informed and find other people with the same mindset as mine so I can learn something, hopefully.

Flexitarian sounds pretty cool, cosmographer, but my fellow Romanians are pretty uneducated on these matters, so I suspect I`d get a lot of raised eyebrows with it.

Thanks for the encouragements to become a full-blown vegetarian, however, I`m afraid my will power isn`t that great either (even though I am way past second grade, lol). I will definitely research it more though.

As for becoming vegan or sticking to <10% animal products, I doubt I could ever do that, as I love dairy and eggs way too much.. But I have the highest amount of respect for people who are able to eat vegan. I can only dream that one day I will have such will power as them.

Original Post by milehighwalker:

I don't call myself a "laid back vegetarian" but I think I eat similarly to what you have in mind.

Basically, I don't buy meat at the store and I don't order it in restaurants.  I do eat it if I go somewhere and there's not a reasonable option otherwise.  So, this week I ate some chicken at a meeting where dinner was provided and the only veggie option was white rice (I had assumed there'd be a veggie option for the group or else I might have just eaten beforehand) and I know tonight I will be eating a buffalo burger since we are going to a friend's for dinner.

In other catered situations, say a work event I went to this summer with hot dogs and burgers for lunch, I made a sandwich on a hamburger bun with the "fixins": cheese, lettuce, onions, and tomatoes. So, it's not that I eat meat at every event I go to, only if there's not really a good option otherwise.

I could ask my friend tonight to make me a veggie burger, but since I'm not a vegetarian, I don't feel justified in asking other people to make special arrangements for me, if that makes sense.

Am I a vegetarian? Absolutely not.  Am I positively impacting my health, the environment, and the welfare of animals? I absolutely am.

This sounds just like my train of thought! I mean I would also hate to be a bother, or confined to eat just bread or rice at a social gathering, and probably feel pretty miserable (not to mention hungry!) because of it.

I guess there are some extra lengths I would feel uncomfortable going to, at least right now. But once again I have to state that I admire people who are strong enough to go all the way. And that`s why I`m a regular lurker over here and hope you guys don`t mind my posting, which is out of place, I`ll admit, but in my defense, I am just trying to somewhat educate myself.

I post on vegetarian boards if what I have to say is pertinent.  I would post, for example, my recipe for sweet potatoe chili (which is amazing and happens to be vegan) but obviously on the "what I had for lunch today" posts I wouldn't share if I had a hot dog.

Oh, also, just fyi some people will still take offense to the word flexitarian.

Honestly, the labeling debates get so heated I just refer to myself as someone-who-tries-not-to-eat-much-meat.

Yes, I am a laid-back vegetarian.  The vocabulary police can go to ...

I've heard what you've described called "flexitarian" and it's what I called myself in the past.  I believe there are even books and such about that kind of diet available.  I think it's a GREAT way to ease yourself into a veggie diet and I agree that every choice counts.  If every person stopped eating meat for just one meal a week it would make a tremendous difference.

I've had veggie friends for many, many years and after so much time of cooking and eating together socially I slowly reduced my own meat intake over the years.  It occurred rather naturally and I realized my tastes were simply changing.  I started by not bringing it into my house to cook, only partaking when eating out or when served it as a guest somehwere.  After several years of this I noticed one day that without even realizing it, I'd cut chicken out of my diet completely for about a year, simply because I'd lost my taste for it.  So I made the consicous effort to cut it out completely. 

In June of 2008 I made the decision to go fully pescetarian and cut all other meat out completely.  Of course, now I probably haven't eaten fish in the last 4 months.  And I don't have any plans to eat it in the future.  But I can't say I won't EVER eat it again.  For convenience's sake, I call myself a vegetarian, as it's easiest when explaining my diet to someone who doesn't know me.

I try to limit the amount of meat I eat. I love it, and I believe it's healthy, but I don't like the effect on the environment that meat-eating has. But I wouldn't call myself vegetarian. Just another one of the people-who-try-not-to-eat-much-meat.

I too am finding that I'm on the road to becoming a "laid-back vegetarian" a "flexitarian" or a "person who tires not to eat much meat." It all started when my new roommate moved in, she was a vegetarian but gave it up when she moved overseas as it's harder to be a vegetarian when you don't speak the native language. the transition hasn't been difficult (especially since i love vegetables anyway). I've noticed that it's not just me who is eating less meat, it's pretty much anyone trying to live a healthier lifestyle. so perhaps we are futuretarians. :)

If I were you, I'd describe myself as "mostly vegetarian." Or you could do what some languages do -- I'm thinking of Chinese -- and talk about your food choices with verbs rather than nouns/labels. In Chinese, one isn't a vegetarian, one "eats plain/vegetarian." And lots of folks eat that way only on certain religious (usually Buddhist) holidays or one meal a day or whatever. Quite a few older women want to avoid meat because they're devout Buddhists but they don't want to inconvenience their families -- for whom they're usually cooking -- so they just make sure to have a non-meat breakfast. Reduces one's food-related bad karma by one-third!

LOL, I like the idea of reducing one's food karma by 1/3 by eating no meat at breakfast!  That's awsome.

Ily51, I use to brag about my love for meat, that I'd never be a vegetarian, that vegetarian food was gross, and I thought all vegetarian were crazy, peta members that told little kids they were going to hell for drinking milk.  Of course, MOST vegetarians are not like that, I just saw the bad side through the media. 

But one day a friend dragged me kicking and screaming to a vegetarian asian resturant (thought asian food was about as tasty as vegetarian food) but I found out both tasted better then I'd thought!  After that I started playing w/a few vegetarain dinners each week.  My best friend happened to cut mamials out of her diet, and my other friend thought it was a good idea so she started playing with vegetarian cookbooks.  Before I knew it, I had a lot of great recipes w/o meat and made 99% of my dinners vegetarian, but at resturants or friends' houses I'd eat meat.  At work, I wouldn't eat the hamburger but I'd have the potatoe soup although it had bacon.

But the more I went w/o meat the more I realized there were so many other foods out there that I loved but never gave a fair chance to.  After about a year, I decided to go pescatarian for Lent.  But right before Lent I read The Ethics of What We Eat and decided to go vegetarian instead.  I figured it was only 40days, and when it was over I'd have a big fat salmon as a reward.  Two weeks later I realized I was never going to eat any meat again.  It was gross, and I never realized how awful it made me feel until I'd stopped eating it all together. 

So don't feel bad if you're only a flexatarian, or whatever you want to call it (is the label really important?)  My husband eats vegetarian at home but eats meat at his parents house (I call him a closet vegetarian), my grandmother (after seeing how much happier I was after giving up meat) decided to only eat chicken and fish, and my one friend has stuck to the no-mamial lifestyle b/c it's best for her.  I don't give any of them a hard time for not being "good enough" to my standards, and I'd hate it if my other friend, now vegan, did that to me b/c I still use cheese.  I'm glad I have a husband that would change his eating from hamburgers to black bean burgers, and I'm also glad to see that my influence made my grandmother try to cut back on meat as well.  I think ever bit helps. 

But if you want good research material here are some great books:

http://www.amazon.com/Diet-Small-Planet-20th- Anniversary/dp/0345321200

http://www.amazon.com/Ethics-What-We-Eat-Choi ces/dp/1594866872  (I found the part where they basically rape female turkeys w/tube of sperm to get them preggo especially inspiring not to eat thanksgiving turkey)

http://www.amazon.com/Fast-Food-Nation-Dark-A ll-American/dp/0060938455 (all americans should read this book, it's sad, sad, sad). 

And if you want bitchn' recipes on days you don't eat meat:

http://www.theppk.com/ any of the book froms this site are great!  I'm not a vegan, but I love vegan food b/c it's tasty and automatically vegetarian.