What is a Flexitarian?

Flexitarian - what is that? A fringe political party? A bizarre religion? Neither, my friends - a flexitarian is a person who avoids eating animal products (meat, dairy, eggs, etc) in general, but does still consume those things on occaision.

Now the whole idea of a might seem a little hypocritical at first glance, but I think that entireley depends on your reason for being vegetarian or vegan (or mostly-vegan)... Many people who avoid consuming animal products seem to do so on principle, because of their belief that animal flesh or related animal products (such as dairy) should not be harvested for human greed, etc.

However, this is view is not a belief that I personally share. In my personal beliefs, animals are meant for human use (in responsible ways, of course), so I do not believe that it is wrong to consume animal products. However, I also believe that we should consume meat 'sparingly' in our diets, for health reasons. And I believe that using animal-derived products (dairy, eggs, etc) falls into that same category as well.

So, there you have it - My family and I are probably strangest kind of semi-vegan flexitarian you will probably ever come across... the kind who try to limit our intake of meat/dairy/eggs, but who occaisionally do continue to eat all of those things without hypocrisy. Do we like meat, dairy, and eggs? Yes. Will we eat it? Yes. We just try to cut most of it out of our diet on a regular basis.