Part-Time Vegetarians

For the last 15 years, Dawn Jackson Blatner has been what's now called a "flexitarian" or "almost vegetarian." She eats lots of fruits, vegetables, nuts, barbecued tempeh and veggie burgers with guacamole. But she sometimes indulges in a pork chop or her grandma's pot roast.

It might seem like being a vegetarian of convenience isn't particularly inspiring, but a growing number of experts and even some famous foodies are fans. They say that cutting back on meat, rather than abstaining completely, may be a practical compromise that benefits our bodies and our environment.

"It gives you the health benefits of a vegetarian diet without having to follow the strict rules," says Blatner, a registered dietitian and author of "The Flexitarian Diet: The Mostly Vegetarian Way to Lose Weight, Be Healthier, Prevent Disease, and Add Years to Your Life" (McGraw-Hill, October 2008). "We know that people live longer and live healthier when they eat vegetarian, but it's just too darn hard to do it 100 percent of the time."

Even gourmet food writers, used to nightly courses of filets and pates, are advocating the eat-less-meat movement. In January, Mark Bittman, author of "How to Cook Everything" (Wiley, 1998), is coming out with new book called "Food Matters," (Simon & Schuster) about how our diet affects global warming and "globesity" (global obesity). Bittman has been very critical of what he calls America's "meat guzzling" tendencies. "I am an advocate of what I like to think of as a much saner diet—a largely plant-based diet," he says. A meat-based diet is, he says, "not even close to sustainable." Last year, Bittman published "How to Cook Everything Vegetarian," (Wiley, 2007), though he is not a vegetarian himself.

Bittman notes that Americans eat about 200 pounds of meat, poultry and fish a year—twice as much as the global average. He argues that not only is a heavily vegetable diet healthier for us physically, but that it's also true that the industrial production and processing of grain-fed livestock consumes a huge amount energy and has a negative impact on the environment.

It's unclear how many people are official "flexitarian" converts, but nutritionists believe there are a growing number of people who are simply eating fewer meat entrees whether it's for health, or economic reasons or because there are more good meatless dishes on offer. Think how many Americans regularly eat peanut-butter and jelly sandwiches, pasta, bean burritos and cheese pizzas as their main courses, says Blatner. "I do feel like that is a shocking thing, when you think about how much vegetarian food we eat without even trying."