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New breed of 'flexitarians' cropping up
March 17, 2004
CONCORD, N.H. — Even after five years, Christy Pugh has no trouble sticking to her vegetarian regimen.
The secret to her success? Eating meat.
"Sometimes I feel like I'm a bad vegetarian, that I'm not strict enough or good enough," the 28-year-old bookkeeper from Concord said recently. "I really like vegetarian food, but I'm just not 100 percent committed."
Pugh is one of a growing number of part-time vegetarians whose loose adherence to the meat-free diet is transforming a decades-old movement and the industry that feeds it.
These so-called "flexitarians" — a term voted most useful word of 2003 by the American Dialect Society — are motivated less by animal rights than by a growing body of medical data that suggests health benefits from eating more vegetarian foods.
"There's so many reasons that people are vegetarians ... I find that nobody ever gives me a hard time when I say I usually eat vegetarian. But I really like sausage," Pugh said.
In recent years the market for vegetarian-friendly foods has exploded, with items such as soy milk and veggie burgers showing up in mainstream groceries and fast-food restaurants.
But even the diet's activists say that growth can't be attributed to committed vegetarians, who are estimated at about 3 percent of the adult U.S. population, or about 5.7 million people never eating meat, poultry or seafood.
Charles Stahler, co-director of the Baltimore-based Vegetarian Resource Group, credits the growth to flexitarians — vegetarians who dabble in meat and carnivores who seek out vegetarian meals.
"This is why Burger King has a veggie burger. It's not because of us," he said. "The true vegetarians wouldn't rush to Burger King anyway. It's because of those people in the middle. They are the driving audience."
Though flexitarian headcounts are imprecise, Stahler estimates roughly 30 percent to 40 percent of the population at least occasionally seeks out vegetarian meals.
Reprinted from the Daily Camera, Boulder, CO
http://www.dailycamera.com/bdc/nation_world_news/article/0,1713,BDC_2420_2735932,00.html
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