April 22, 2025
How the flexitarian diet helps you to eat healthier without cutting the meat completely

How the flexitarian diet helps you to eat healthier without cutting the meat completely

The flexitarian diet follows a semi-vegetarian eating pattern that emphasizes plant food and minimizes meat. There are no fixed rules for certain options for being a flexitorial. For example, flexitarians could eat meat six days a week and have a “meatless Monday”, while heavy meat residents only have meat once a week. As the name suggests, flexitarianism is flexible.

How a flexitarian diet works

There are no hard rules for how much meat flexitarians can or can eat in a typical week. In contrast to strict diets with rigid guidelines such as a ketogenic dining plan (keto diet), a milk-free diet, gluten-free diet or a vegan diet, a flexit diet does not prohibit any animal food.

You can eat eggs, dairy products, chicken or everything else that you like to eat on a flexit diet as long as the decrease in meat intake to a certain degree is part of your weekly meal plan.

According to a study of 2021, about half of all flexitarians eat four or more days a week. There are three meat restrictions among flexitarians described by themselves, whereby in each category there is a different percentage of the flexitarian:

  • Easy meat restorers
  • Moderate meat frictioners
  • Heavy meat frictioners

Light meat restors can eat meat every day, except on certain days, such as B. a meatless Monday. In contrast, flexitarians, which are heavy meat-resistors, tend most of the time like vegetarians and may only have meat once or twice a week.

Avoid protein and amino acid deficiency

Protein and amino acid deficiency are possible with flexitarians who eat very little meat, especially in older adults. The use of a protein powder nutritional supplement with essential amino acids on vegetarian days is a simple and practical way for flexitarians to compensate for deficiency risks.

What to eat?

Since a flexible nutrition plan is so flexible, you do not have to follow a seven-day meal schedule with a uniform size. You can personalize your plate to avoid nutritional gaps and make individual decisions about how many days you want to eat meat.

On meatless vegetarian days, it is important to eat in meat with high protein and other important nutrients on a vegetable basis in order to avoid micronutrient defects such as iron deficiency anemia.

If you eat like a vegan or vegetarian meal, make sure that your personalized menu with high calcium, iron, omega-3 fatty acids, vitamin B12, vitamin D and zinc contain.

In the following you will find some iron foods with high protein and other important nutrients that can be used on vegetarian days as building blocks for your personalized plates:

  • Beans and legumes
  • Dairy products and eggs
  • Leaf green vegetables (not high in protein, but filled with iron)
  • Nuts and seeds
  • Whole grain products

What is considered meat?

Meat is every form of animal tissue that is consumed as food. A flexitarian could eat on carnivorous days poultry (Chicken, turkey, duck), Red meat (Beef, pork, lamb) or seafood (Fish or shellfish). “Pescatarian” is the term for a person who eats seafood but does not eat other forms of animal meat.

A 7-day menu

The following is a seven -day meal schedule for someone who is considering the flexitarian diet. This does not apply to everyone, and individual needs can require different diets. This was designed with regard to protein, so that you can get enough protein even on meatless days to feel full.

1. Monday (vegetarian)

  • Breakfast: Protein omelet
  • Lunch: Pizza with fungus and onions
  • snack: Vegan protein powder -shake
  • Dinner: Kale salad with fried tofu

2. Tuesday (seafood)

  • Breakfast: Protein waffles with strawberries and whipped cream
  • Lunch: Tuna salad
  • snack: Baby carrots with almond butter
  • Dinner: Grilled salmon with asparagus and potatoes

3. Wednesday (vegan)

  • Breakfast: Vegan oatmeal with coconut
  • Lunch: Vegan chickpea salad
  • snack: Vegan protein powder -shake
  • Dinner: Vegan black beans -chili with quinoa

4. Thursday (meat)

  • Breakfast: Fried eggs with turkey sausage
  • Lunch: Grilled chicken breast sandwich
  • snack: Celery dip with peanut butter
  • Dinner: Pasta with broccoli, olive oil and garlic

5. Friday (vegetarian)

  • Breakfast: Simple yogurt with berries and walnuts
  • Lunch: Grilled temeh -sandwich with tomato and cheddar cheese
  • snack: Vegan protein powder -shake
  • Dinner: Tofu roast

6. Saturday (meat)

  • Breakfast: Eggs Benedikt
  • Lunch: Beef taco salad
  • snack: Fruit yogurt
  • Dinner: Lamb chops with apple sauce and Brussels sprouts

7th Sunday (vegetarian)

  • Breakfast: French toast with strawberries and banana
  • Lunch: Grilled cheese and tomato soup
  • snack: Vegan protein powder -shake
  • Dinner: Veggie burger

Advantages of flexit food

Flexitarian food often includes many healthy, vegetable food and less processed meat than the average omnivore diet. A flexitorial being matched the principles of healthy diet. Flexitarianism focuses on eating more vegetables and fruit and at the same time reducing meat absorption. The food of less meat, which is often high in saturated fat, has numerous health benefits.

A study from 2015 showed, for example, that eating a semi-vegetarian diet with a reduction in the risk of dying of cardiovascular diseases (a group of disorders that affect heart and blood vessels) compared to those who do not affect pro-vegetarian dietary habits were used with fewer animal foods.

In addition to the individual health advantages of flexitorial food, meat consumption is good for the planet and benefits our collective global community. Flexitarians and other “meat shearers” that reduce weekly meat consumption help to slow down the environmental deterioration.

Considerations and nutritional restrictions

Flexitarianism is based on the flexibility of nutrition. Apart from the fact that it tries to reduce meat consumption at least once a week, flexitarian meal contains very little dogma or inflexible nutritional restrictions. The only real consideration in deciding how to eat a flexitorial meal is whether you want to be a light, moderate or heavy meat frictioner.

Flexitarians against vegetarians against vegan diets

While vegetarians never eat meat and vegans never eat foods from animal sources, flexitarians can eat like a vegetarian or vegan for a few days a week, but not others.

Summary

Flexitarians are flexible vegetarians. In contrast to strict vegetarians, flexitarians sometimes eat meat. There are no rigid guidelines about how often a flexitarian can eat meat. Some light flexitarians can eat every day of the week with the exception of a meat, while heavy flexitarians only have red meat, poultry or seafood once or twice a week.

A flexitarian center of the street can track a seven -day menu, which includes chicken, beef or fish three days a week and meatless four days a week. The food of protein-rich foods on a plant-based basis and the use of a protein powder supplement on meatless days falls the risk that less meat deficiency occurs when eating in the event of defects.

HELWELL HEALTH only uses high -quality sources, including studies assessed by experts, to support the facts in our articles. Read our editorial process to learn more about how we check our content facts and keep our content precisely, reliably and trustworthy.
  1. Gillies Na, Worthington A, Li L, et al. Adherence and eating experiences differ between the participants after a flexit diet, including red meat or a vegetarian diet, including meat alternatives on a vegetable basis: results of a 10-week randomized nutritional intervention attempt. Front groove. 2023; 10: 1174726 DOI: 10.3389/Fnut.2023.1174726

  2. Malek L, Umberger WJ. How flexible are flexitarians? Examination of diversity in nutritional patterns, motivations and future intentions. Clean and responsible consumption. 2021; 3: 100038. DOI: 10.1016/J.Clrc.2021.100038

  3. Mariotti, Gardner. Food protein and amino acids in vegetarian diets – a review. Nutrients. 2019; 11 (11): 2661. DOI: 10.3390/NU11112661

  4. De Boer J, Schösler H, Aiking H. On the way to a reduced meat diet: thinking and motivation of young vegetarians, low, medium and high meat eaters. appetite. 2017; 113: 387-397. DOI: 10.1016/J.appet.2017.03.007

  5. Pawlak R, Berger J, Hines I. Iron status of vegetarian adults: a review of the literature. American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine. 2018; 12 (6): 486-498. DOI: 10.1177/155982761682933

  6. Boler DD, what is meat? A perspective by the American Meat Science Association. Animal boundaries. 2017; 7 (4): 8-11. DOI: 10.2527/AF.2017.0436

  7. Lassale C, BULLES J, van der Schouw y, et al. Abstract 16: A pro-vegetarian food pattern and cardiovascular mortality in the epic study. Traffic. 2015; 131 (Suppl_1). DOI: 10.1161/Circ.131.suppl_1.16

  8. Green A, Blattmann C, Chen C, Mathys A. The role of alternative proteins and future foods in sustainable and contextually adapted flexitarian diets. Trends in food science and technology. 2022; 124: 250-258. DOI: 10.1016/J.tifs.2022.03.026

  9. Rosenfeld DL, Rothgerber H, Tomiyama aj. Mostly vegetarian, but flexible: Examine how meat reducers express social identity for your diet. Social and personal science. 2020; 11 (3): 406-415. DOI: 10.1177/1948550619869619

Additional reading

  • DAKIN BC, Ching Ae, Teperman E, Klebl C, Moshel M, Bastian B. Precise vegetarian or flexitarian diets to a continued reduction in meat intake. appetite. 2021; 164: 105285. DOI: 10.1016/J.appet.2021.105285

  • DAKIN BC, Ching Ae, Teperman E, Klebl C, Moshel M, Bastian B. Precise vegetarian or flexitarian diets to a continued reduction in meat intake. appetite. 2021; 164: 105285. DOI: 10.1016/J.appet.2021.105285


By Christopher Bergland

Bergland is a retired Ultra young athlete who became a medical writer and science reporter. He is based in Massachusetts.

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