If fruits, vegetables and legumes are lacking in your diet, there are plenty of hamburgers and red meats and you want once and for all to eat healthier, we offer you one option: to stick to the Flexitarian diet.
What is the flexitarian diet?
Although its name resembles “vegetarian diet” and the flexitarian diet has its similarities with it, it is a more flexible option. The flexitarian diet would be like a flexible vegetarian diet.
By eating more foods of plant origin, but without completely eliminating the meats of the diet, we can carry out the flexitarian diet that encourages us to eat more healthy foods that may be absent or very little present in our diet and reduce foods that do not Are required in large quantities such as red meats.
Although it is possible to consume red meats, flexitarians often opt for fish as a source of animal protein and always, the basis of the dishes are foods of vegetable origin such as fruits, vegetables, legumes, whole grains, nuts and seeds.
If the vegetarian diet attracts you but you find it very strict, the flexitarian diet is a good choice if you want to eat healthier.
The Advantages of the Flexitarian Diet
Carrying a flexitarian diet can be a good way to introduce more healthy foods and reduce others that are not necessary daily , but in addition, here are other advantages of flexitarianism:
- There are no restrictions or prohibitions, so we will have a flexible diet that encourages a healthy relationship with food. If we have desire to eat meat we will eat it, while if we do not want it we can take care of our diet by making dishes predominantly of vegetable origin.
- It takes care of the environment by reducing the consumption of meat and thus, to discard the cattle production that can as much influence in the greenhouse effect and the global warming as it has been proven. However, it does not break food chains or overexploit agricultural consumption, because we will reduce the meat but we will not eliminate them completely.
- There is no risk of food shortages, since as we do not eliminate whole groups of foods as in veganism for example, we can cover nutritional needs with foods that we used before and now, we have only reduced their consumption.
- It allows to eat in society, something very complex when it takes a vegetarian food for example, since many of the dishes elaborated outside of house include products of animal origin. With the Flexitarian diet we can eat what is presented to us in an event or what we want in a restaurant and we will always have more options to choose from.
- It takes care of the health and physical form, because a flexitariana diet offers adequate amounts of fiber, vitamins, minerals and antioxidants that not only take care of us inside but also, outside.
These are some advantages of the flexitarian diet over the classic western diet that prevails today or above the vegetarian diet that many would like to choose but we are strict or complex to carry out.
Since fruits and vegetables, whole grains, legumes and other healthy foods can not be lacking at the usual table , the Flexitarian diet can help us optimize our diet.
How to target flexitarianism
If the Flexitarian diet is a good option to eat healthier and take care of your body, you can start to follow the basis of this type of diet.
The first thing you should do to target flexitarianism is to reduce your overall meat consumption: if you are a true carnivore and eat red, white or fish meat every day, you can start by leaving only one day without meat . For example, on Wednesday you completely eliminate meats and choose dishes based on vegetables, legumes or whole grains.
In addition, you can change your dishes or how to cook them so that vegetables predominate in them and not meats. So, if you used to eat a ribeye with roasted potatoes you can now eat a tempered salad of potatoes and other vegetables with small pieces of meat or ham.
Little by little you can increase the number of days without meat to become a beginner flexitarian that does not exceed 700 grams of meat a week and that in the rest of the days, it obtains proteins that satiate of eggs and dairy for example.
Some ideas that can help you introduce more vegetables and become a flexitarian to eat healthier are to add vegetables to stews, to make hamburgers or breaded with vegetables, cereals and / or various vegetables, among other options.
