Vegetarian Star

Jamie Oliver has made himself an accidental vegetarian a few days a week because he can’t pry himself away from the salad bar.

“I’m probably vegetarian a couple of days a week, not on purpose but really just because I love eating vegetables and salad. I admire vegetarians, but I’m too much of a meat lover to ever become full-time vegetarian.”

Staunch vegans sometimes get upset by those who are willing to only give up meat part-time, but numbers do not lie. Two part time vegetarians in one household equals one full time one. And if 3-4 people ate veg twice a week like Jamie, that’s the equivalent of one person eating vegetarian every day of the week! Jamie’s love of salads works for him, but there are numerous ways to contribute to part-time vegetarianism or encourage your meat eating friends and relatives to do so. Here are a few ways you may not have considered to reduce your meat intake, improve your health, lighten your environmental footprint and reduce animal suffering.

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Mark Bittman‘s “Vegan Before Six” approach to reducing your meat intake is becoming popular, but it’s not the only way to do vegetarian part time.

In an article from MSN, over a dozen suggestions are made for eating less meat, and some may surprise or even entertain you.

For example, there’s the “Don’t Go There,” approach:

“Avoid the meat areas of your supermarket. Out of sight, out of mind, right? It works for me.”

Ask veggie friends to cook for you (better yet, pay them to do so):
“If you have similar pals, watch them cook. Ask how they get by. Eat with them. Vegetarians are experts at non-meat lifestyles, and you can learn a lot just by hanging out in their circles.”

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Meat eaters who will forgo the hamburger on most days and opt for the pasta with “wheat” balls are on the rise.

According to a new study discussed in The Mirror, record numbers of flexitarians, or people who eat vegetarian sometimes are forming.

Sales of  products such as fake meats have doubled over the last decade in the UK, according to the Vegetarian Society.

“The real growth area is in ‘meat reducers’ – those who haven’t given up meat completely but who are making a conscious effort to eat less of it,” said Su Taylor, a spokesperson for the company.

There are different ways to incorporate a part-time vegetarian lifestyle.

Treehugger founder Graham Hill follows a weekday vegetarian plan, while author Mark Bittman recommends a “vegan until 6” deal.

Still, others eliminate some animal products entirely, like red meat and dairy, replacing them with plant based alternatives.

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Chipotle founder, co-CEO and co-chair Steve Ells says the pork sourced for their products is obtained from Niman Ranch, a small network of family farms that raise their pigs on open pastures or deeply bedded barns, feed them vegetarian diets and give them no hormones or antibiotics.

After switching to this supplier, Ells found sales increased even after having to charge an extra dollar to cover the cost of the non factory farmed meat.

Paul Wills, manager of Niman Ranch Pork Company, is a contributor in Moby and Miyun Park‘s edited collection of essays, Gristle, where he discusses the strain big farms put on small family ones.

Although Wills may be a fish out of water in a book edited by a vegan with a vegetarian slant, the experience with Chipotle restaurant teaches us that the more humane way to raise an animal for food not only puts less stress on the organism and the environment, but results in more satisfaction for the consumer.

Niman Ranch’s “ethical meat” is not a vegetarian carnita, but it’s a step forward in taking better care of the world and every living thing, including part time vegetarians, that inhabits it.

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Food writer and New York Times columnist Mark Bittman once said that “if pigs were raised in prison”, he “wouldn’t care as long as they tasted good.”

Ten years later, he tells what is seemingly a more caring storing about animal welfare.

“I don’t know if that means they’re subhuman or just different than humans, but there’s certainly no reason to mistreat them as badly as we do,” he told Josh Hardow and Michael Rau at the Library Journal.

“I guess if you’re going to kill them and eat them, you’re mistreating them to some extent anyway, but there are degrees of that.”

One has to question some of his motives for better animal welfare, as he added that if anything would affect the taste of meat, it would be the industry’s disregard for both animals and the environment through their mass production methods of bringing it to the supermarket.

But you must give him credit, as he’s including fewer and fewer meat meals in both his personal diet and his cookbooks.

While by no means a vegetarian (yet), in his newest book, Food Matters: A Guide to Conscious Eating with More Than 75 Recipes, he’s advocated switching to a more plant based diet.

It all started while he was revising one of his How To Cook Everything books (one of which is vegetarian) in 2005-2006. “If I’m eating less meat, and I think everybody should be eating less meat, maybe I don’t need 600 or 700 recipes including meat,” he said of his revisions.

While going all the way is ideal, part time vegetarians or flexitarians still have much to gain in terms of reducing food costs and improving health, not to mention lessening environmental impact and animal suffering.

And Bittman seems to agree.

“It was going to be called The Food Matters Cookbook, but if I could get people using the word “lessmeatarian,” I’d be ecstatic.

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