Ensure your health, incorporate a healthier lifestyle. Health conditions have the greatest impact on Americans’ quality of life and a common risk factor for these health conditions is poor nutrition.
The flexitarian diet is an alternative way to ensure your health.
I’ve eaten this way for many years, it originally started out for me because I just would not feel well after consuming animal protein on a regular basis. I was taught to believe meat was supposed to be eaten and lets be honest, it taste good. But my body was telling me it was not good for me.
People would ask me if I was a vegetarian and or vegan when I graciously turned down meat portions and I felt like a liar if I said yes. I go months without consuming animal proteins but I still crave certain ones. My heart goes out to pizza. I will never be able to give that up and I don’t want to. But I know when that craving hits me, eating a slice or two of hamburger pizza will not send my gut into a state of inflammation. I substitute animal protein for other proteins which keep my protein intake where it needs to be. Ensure your health, incorporate a healthier lifestyle.
What is the Flexitarian Diet. Ensure your health, incorporate a healthier lifestyle.
Flextarianism” is a neoteric term that has been emerging in the scientific and public sectors recently. flexitarian is a portmanteau of “flexible” and “vegetarian,” referring to an individual who follows a primarily but not strictly vegetarian diet, occasionally eating meat or fish.
The Flexitarian Diet was created by dietitian Dawn Jackson Blatner to help people reap the benefits of vegetarian eating while still enjoying animal products in moderation.
The theory behind the Flexitarian Diet is a more flexible approach to a vegetarian diet, so that you can still reap the benefits of loading up on fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, without ditching animal products like steak and burgers entirely.
Unlike strict vegans and vegetarians, Flexitarians don’t completely cut meat from their diets, they simply limit the amount of animal protein in their daily meal choices. Rather than elimination diets that use an all-or-nothing approach that may not last, the Flexitarian diet uses small steps to make big changes.
The Flexitarian Diet has no clear-cut rules or recommended numbers of calories and macronutrients. In fact, it’s more a lifestyle than a diet and is based on the following principles:
- Eat mostly fruits, vegetables, legumes and whole grains.
- Focus on protein from plants instead of animals.
- Be flexible and incorporate meat and animal products from time to time.
- Eat the least processed, most natural form of foods.
- Limit added sugar and sweets.
Due to its flexible nature and focus on what to include rather than restrict, the Flexitarian Diet is a popular choice for people looking to eat healthier.
The creator of the Flexitarian Diet, Dawn Jackson Blatner spells out how to start eating flexitarian by incorporating certain amounts of meat per week in her book.
In the 2019 Best Diet Rankings by U.S. News & World Report, the Flexitarian Diet was ranked No. 3 in the Best Diets Overall category, in terms of long-term health and disease prevention, and No. 2 in Best Diets for Diabetes. It was also ranked No. 2 in the Best Plant-Based Diets second to the Mediterranean Diet. And unsurprisingly, the diet also took home second in the Easiest Diets to Follow categories in 2019, suggesting that its less-than-rigid nature makes it easy to follow and maintain.
Benefits of the Flexitarian Diet
Eating flexitarian may provide several health benefits.
However, since there is no clear definition of this diet, it’s difficult to assess if and how researched benefits of other plant based diets apply to the Flexitarian Diet.
Nevertheless, research on vegan and vegetarian diets is still helpful in highlighting how semi-vegetarian diets may promote health.
It appears to be important to eat mostly fruits, vegetables, legumes, whole grains and other minimally processed whole foods in order to reap the health benefits of plant-based eating.
Decreasing meat consumption while continuing to eat refined foods with lots of added sugar and salt will not lead to the same benefits.
Heart Disease
Diets rich in fiber and healthy fats are said to be good for heart health. This is likely due to the fact that vegetarian diets are often rich in fiber and antioxidants that may reduce blood pressure and increase good cholesterol.
A large study presented at an American Heart Association meeting in 2015 found that people who followed a semi-vegetarian, the Flexitarian diet had a lower risk of heart disease and stroke. The Journal of Geriatric Cardiology found that plant-based diets may be effective in preventing and treat heart failure.
However, flexitarian eating is meant to be primarily plant-based and will most likely have benefits similar to fully vegetarian diets.
Weight Loss
Flexitarian eating may also be good for your waistline. This is partially because flexitarians limit high-calorie, processed foods and eat more plant foods that are naturally lower in calories. Several studies have shown that people who follow a plant-based diet may lose more weight than those who do not.
Since the Flexitarian Diet is closer to a vegetarian diet than a vegan one, it may help with weight loss but possibly not as much as a vegan diet would.
Consequently, If you’re trying to lose weight, there is a seemingly infinite number of eating plans and diets to choose from, and the Flexitarian Diet can be considered one of the most credible. If you emphasize the plant-based component of this diet by eating lots of fruits, veggies, and whole grains, you’ll likely feel full on fewer calories than you’re accustomed to, which makes shedding pounds almost inevitable.
By eating more plants and less meat, it’s suggested that adherents to the diet will not only lose weight but can improve their overall health, lowering their rate of heart disease, diabetes and cancer, and live longer as a result.
Diabetes
Type 2 diabetes is a global health epidemic. Eating a healthy diet, especially a predominantly plant-based one, may help prevent and manage this disease.
This is most likely because plant-based diets aid weight loss and contain many foods that are high in fiber and low in unhealthy fats and added sugar.
Cancer
Fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, whole grains and legumes all have nutrients and antioxidants that may help reduce and or lower cancer. Eating more fruits and veggies may help prevent a third of cancer cases. Decades of research suggests that the best diet for cancer prevention is all about plants. That means lots of fruits, vegetables and legumes, and little to no meat or other animal products.
Researchers found lower cancer rates among people who didn’t eat meat at all. In fact, vegans those who don’t eat any animal products including fish, dairy or eggs appeared to have the lowest rates of cancer of any diet. Next in line were vegetarians, who avoid meat but may eat fish or foods that come from animals, such as milk or eggs.
Therefore, incorporating more vegetarian foods by eating flexitarian may reduce your cancer risk.
How to get started on the Flexitarian Diet. Ensure your health, incorporate a healthier lifestyle.
1. Reportion your plate.
Blatner recommends downsizing your meat and grain portions while pumping up the produce. Aim to have 25 percent of your plate for meat, poultry, or fish; 25 percent whole grains (such as brown rice, quinoa, whole grain pasta); and 50 percent from fruits and veggies. Loading up on greens like kale, lettuce, or arugula, is one way to bulk up the veggies.
2. Reinvent old favorites.
Take your current favorite recipes and swap out the meat for beans. Sub in ¼ cup beans for every ounce of meat that you swap out. Blatner recommends using low-sodium soy sauce, mushrooms, potatoes, green tea, and tomato sauce to create an umami (savory) taste.
If you don’t like beans, opt instead for lentils or chickpeas, which are versatile and can be less expensive than chicken, pork, or beef.
3. Refresh your recipe repertoire.
Try a new vegetarian recipe each week. Ask friends for their favorites, or look through vegetarian magazines and cookbooks. (Blatner’s The Flexitarian Diet has several recipes to choose from.)
Foods to Eat on the Flexitarian Diet
- Plant proteins Any beans, peas, or lentils such as black beans, pinto beans, garbanzo beans, white beans, red lentils
- Whole grains That includes quinoa, brown rice, oats, barley, sorghum, buckwheat, and white and sweet potatoes.
- Vegetables
- Fruits
- Dairy milk and plant milk
- Eggs
- Nuts and nut butters
- Seeds
- Tofu
- Healthy fats These include avocado and olive oil.
Foods to Limit on the Flexitarian Diet. Ensure your health, incorporate a healthier lifestyle.
Not all food groups are entirely excluded on the Flexitarian Diet. Blatner points out it’s not just about eating fewer animal products but also about making smart food choices in general. That’s why the diet also recommends you limit your intake of the following.
- Animal protein That includes chicken, turkey, red meat, and pork.
- Seafood This is considered an animal protein.
- Processed refined grains This includes white pasta, white bread, and white rice.
- Animal fats This includes butter, whole milk, cream.
- Highly processed foods and beverages like pastries, soda, chips
Eating healthy should be on everyone’s agenda; it is always important to have a balanced diet that includes fruits, vegetables, grains, beans, legumes and nuts, to gain enough fiber, vitamins and other nutrients to keep us healthy and fit throughout our lifetimes. And if animal protein is something you like, try less of it. See how it makes you feel and look. Take a look at my resources page. It can get you started down that healthy lifestyle road.