The answer to “How much meat can you eat on a flexitarian diet?” depends on who you ask.
There are lots of variations of semi-vegetarianism, meaning there are a lot of different answers to this question.
Dawn Blatner discusses different levels of meat restriction in her book The Flexitarian Diet, which we’ll review below.
Here’s the progression plan for The Flexitarian Diet:
- Beginner Flexitarian:
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- Two meat-free days a week
- No more than 26 ounces of meat the remainder of the week
- Advanced Flexitarian:
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- Three to four meat-free days a week
- No more than 18 ounces of meat the remainder of the week
- Expert Flexitarian:
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- Meat-free five days a week
- 9 ounces of meat allowed the remaining two days
For reference, a three-ounce piece of chicken breast is about the size of your palm:
Another popular form of flexitarianism comes from VB6 (Vegan Before 6:00) which is exactly what it sounds like: follow a vegan meal plan until dinnertime.
Naturally, there’s a book about this one too, this time from Mark Bittman.
Like Blatner, Bittman encourages the consumption of whole plants and discourages the consumption of junk food.
That’s not too surprising, because every diet encourages the consumption of whole plants and discourages junk food (well, not the Carnivore Diet or the Military Diet).
Other than following a 100% plant-based diet until 6pm, Bittman offers no specific rules for VB6.
You do you.
This is going to lead us to a larger point: “flexitarian” is up to interpretation.
Since there are multiple plans for semi-vegetarianism, how much meat you eat will really depend on your goals and motives.