Flexitarianism, I Did It Before It Was Cool

I’ve heard it all now. I was listening to the radio this morning and a woman was on there speaking about being a ‘flexitarian’

She went on to explain her husband was a vegetarian and was encouraging her to do the same. However, she didn’t want to commit to a strictly no meat diet so basically, she ate vegetarian meals but when she wanted to, she ate meat.

I have a sneaky feeling I’ve been doing this for the past 46 years, I just didn’t realise it had a name. I mean call me old-fashioned, but isn’t that what all meat eaters do? Sometimes eat meat for their tea, sometimes not?

In our house, it would play out something like this

Day 1

‘What’s for tea?’

‘Beans on toast’

‘Is that because we are vegetarian or poor?

‘It’s because we are flexitarians’

Day 2

‘What’s for tea?’

‘Pasta and grated cheese’

‘Is that because we are vegetarian or because you suck at combining being a working woman and stay at home mom, and are too tired and lazy to prepare meals in advance at the weekend ready to give us nourishing food through the week when just in from work so you do pasta because it takes ten minutes to boil?’

‘It’s because we are flexitarians’

Day 3

‘What’s for tea’

‘bacon rolls’

‘Is that because we are flexitarians?’

‘No, it’s because mommy loves bacon’

To be fair, she went on to talk about carbon footprints, healthy eating,and benefits of flexitarianism. All good stuff; but if I’m honest I had stopped listening by then as I was already thinking about the number of times in the week we don’t eat meat for reasons suggested above. I didn’t choose flexitarianism, flexitarianism chose me. In addition, I try to shop local when I can, eat quality meat from local butchers when I can etc. But in all honesty, tea is usually decided by whatever is in the reduced cabinet or if I’ve remembered to defrost something before leaving for work in the morning. I’m wondering if this makes me a flexi-flexitarian? Who knows, but if in the future you hear someone talking about being a flexi-flexitarian on the radio, remember I did it before it was cool.