If You Can’t be a Vegetarian, be a Flexitarian

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People aspire to become vegetarians for ethical, religious, moral, aesthetic, economical, environmental or political reasons. Vegetarians eat plant-based foods, fruits, vegetables, cereals, grains, nuts and seeds. Some vegetarians eat dairy products and even eggs, while many don’t.  Vegans are strict about avoiding all animal products in their diet and clothing.

Why Become Vegetarian?

If you want to live longer, stop eating meat!

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• Vegetarians live longer, according to a metastudy combining data from five studies among 76162 men and women in Western countries.
• This study showed mortality from ischemic heart disease was 24% lower in vegetarians than in non-vegetarians, 34% lower in people who ate fish but not meat.

Stay healthier! The consumption of animal products causes the pH of the body to become acidic, leading to cellular degeneration and the onslaught of disease.

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Meat production is wasteful and not environmentally viable.

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• 2,500 gallons of water produce a single pound of meat compared to only 25 gallons of water needed to produce a pound of wheat.
• Over a billion cattle, weighing more than all the humans on the planet are sustained unnaturally. Beef cattle produce only 1 pound of meat for 16 pounds of grain and soybean they are fed.
• The water used to produce 10 lbs. of steak can provide for a vegetarian family for an entire year.

Billions of animals are kept in horrendously cruel situations and killed for meat. For ethical reasons you don’t want to kill animals or subject them to cruelty because you know that they have emotions and feel pain, joy or sorrow just as you do.

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“For as long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other. Indeed, he who sows the seed of murder and pain cannot reap joy and love.”
     Pythagoras, mathematician

Different Kinds of Meat Avoiders

• Classic vegetarian: Eats no part of any dead animal
• Vegan: Eats no animal product
• Meat-avoider: Tries not to eat meat but has occasional lapses (Flexitarian)
• Meat-reducer: Is trying to eat less meat, probably for health reasons
• Green eater: Avoids meat because of environmental impact

“Now I can look at you in peace; I don’t eat you anymore.”
—Franz Kafka, while admiring fish in an aquarium.

History of Vegetarianism

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Before the 1850s, non-meat eaters were known as Pythagoreans. But vegetarianism was a common practice in ancient India. The word “vegetarian” spread after the Vegetarian Society was founded on September 30th, 1847, by Joseph Brotherton and others, at Northwood Villa in Kent, England.

The origin of the word Flexitarian is rather recent in comparison. One probable origin is a quote from Helga Morath, who used the term flexitarian fare in the Austin American-Statesman, October 17, 1992, to describe the eclectic menu of health/vegetarian food served up in her recently opened Acorn Café at 26th and Guadalupe streets in Austin, Texas.