Are you looking for helpful flexitarian tips to make eating less meat way easier? Here are proven tips to help maintain your flexitarian diet!
Whether you’re a new flexitarian or you’ve been a semi-vegetarian all your life, getting helpful flexitarian tips can make your journey even easier.
As a busy mom, maintaining a flexitarian diet makes me feel healthier, saves money, and significantly decreases my impact on the environment. I am excited to share these helpful flexitarian tips that I use every day when making meals for my family.
In this post, you will learn about easy tips to add to your flexitarian diet including how to eat more plants, and how to remain consistent while eating less meat.
After you’ve learned these flexitarian tips, you will be motivated to maintain your flexitarian meal plant and create delicious meatless meals for your family.
This post is all about crazy helpful flexitarian tips to make eating less meat way easier.
1. Embrace the different tastes of foods in your flexitarian diet
When I first began to eat less meat and eat more vegetables, I found myself chasing after the taste of meat in meatless items. Here’s the thing, nothing tastes like meat, except for meat. I’ll talk about this more in tips number four.
For this flexitarian tip, it is important to truly embrace the different tastes of food. By eating less meat you are eating more other items, hopefully, more fruits, and veggies.
Open your mind to understand that these foods taste different than meat and are still delicious. When we are used to a particular diet, alternating to a more flexible diet does require a change in our brain to recognize that we are eating differently.
2. If you’re following a flexitarian diet plan, remember not to completely deprive yourself
The beauty of a flexitarian diet is that it is just that, flexible. If you have read any of my other blog posts you’ll know that I am not an “all or nothing” person.
I believe that our lifestyles as busy moms must be flexible to help control the chaos of our lives with our little ones. Similarly, our diet should be flexible too.
While our goals can be to eat less meat, we should also not completely deprive ourselves of occasionally having meat if we desire it.
The reason why I suggest not depriving yourself completely is that it helps to maintain your flexitarian diet.
According to this article what happens is that most popular weight loss regimens trigger the body’s starvation alert, which in turn triggers hormonal changes that essentially set up a rebound reaction.
Pull back on eating meat slowly, and remind yourself that being semi-vegetarian is okay!
3. Make your meatless meals absolutely delicious!
Make your food delicious! Delicious food is incredible! Everyone regardless of their food preference is entitled to delicious food.
There is this misconception that eating more plant-based foods means salads. While I definitely encourage a salad as often as possible, it is not the only way to practice a flexitarian diet.
Experiment with different flavors, seasonings, and vegetable combinations, and stretch outside your comfort zone.
Try different cuisines – Thai, Cajan, Asian, Italian, etc. There are so many delicious meals that don’t include meat.
4. Understand Umami
There are five major types of taste: sweet, bitter, sour, salty, and meaty (umami).
As I was explaining to my husband what umami meant, he couldn’t wrap his head around the taste. Umami is like a deep, savory taste. Those of us who eat meat (even on occasion) would say it is a meaty flavor.
However, umami can be achieved without eating meat.
What I learned from a food blogger named Sweet Potato Soul, is that a lot of times when we start our meatless journey, we are still wanting an umami flavor.
That doesn’t mean we have to eat more meat, it just means we have to understand how to achieve this taste without meat.
Just like we can have something sweet without adding sugar, we can accomplish umami without meat.
Here are some ways to boost umami in your flexitarian diet:
- Dried tomatoes
- Dried mushrooms
- Miso
- Olives
- Capers
- Nutritional Yeast
- Roasted nuts/seeds
- Onions
- Garlic
- Cheese
- Eggs
If you want more info on umami, here is a great article!
5. Create a flexitarian meal plan
Meal planning is one of the single best ways my family reduces food waste and remains mindful about what we eat.
When we don’t properly mean plan, I find that we eat out more often and eat foods that don’t feel good in our bodies.
Want to see our meal planning weekly calendar?
This weekly calendar is so functional and easy to use.
Each week my husband and I choose our weekly meals and write them on the calendar so everyone can see them. This calendar is highly rated on Amazon and a great addition for busy moms to help stick to a flexitarian meal plan.
6. Be influenced by vegetarian/vegan food bloggers
Birds of a feather flock together, right? If you’re looking for helpful flexitarian tips and ways to continue eating less meat, follow other people with similar lifestyles.
Whether they are bloggers, influencers, or YouTubers, allow yourself to be inspired with delicious meal options.
Learning new recipes and watching others as they try and explore new foods helps ease the transition into eating less meat. Allow yourself to be inspired and influenced by these meals.
Here are a few of my favorite accounts:
7. Consider the flexitarian diet pros and cons
By considering the flexitarian diet pros and cons, you are able to understand how best to incorporate eating less meat into your diet.
Here are some flexitarian diet pros:
- It’s healthier! Flexitarian diets lower the risk of diabetes and heart disease.
- For adults, flexitarian diets help with weight loss
- For children and adults, flexitarian diets increase fruits and vegetables in the diet
- Save money (because meat is expensive!)
- Flexible! It’s not all or nothing.
Here are some flexitarian diet cons:
- Unfamiliar for heavy meat eaters
- Requires research for more vegetarian/vegan recipes
- Must be mindful to include nutritious foods into diet, not just carbohydrates (potatoes and pasta)
8. Environmental impact
Did you know that eating meat has a significant impact on the environment?
The reason why eating less meat is better for the environment is because animal products take up an enormous amount of space and produce greenhouse gases which are ultimately contributing to our human-induced climate change.
If you’ve ever considered how your actions impact the environment, eating less meat with a flexitarian diet plan is incredibly effective.
In fact, eating a vegan diet could be the “single biggest way” to reduce your environmental impact on the earth, a new study suggests (source).
9. Research food menus before you eat out
It is easy to fall into old habits when we’re in unfamiliar places. At home, we have more control over our menu and what we have in the fridge.
When we’re out at restaurants, it is easy to get intimidated by the menu and choose traditional meals over plant-based alternatives.
My best flexitarian tip for restaurant eating is to research the food menu before you eat out. When you arrive at the restaurant you should already have a good idea of what you are going to order.
If you don’t have the opportunity to look at the menu beforehand, ask the wait staff about their vegetarian options.
If I don’t like the vegetarian options, I chose an item off the regular menu and ask if they could make that item with no meat. Seriously, up until Taco Bell came up with vegetarian options for tacos I would order tacos with no meat.
10. Rethink your plate
In our society, we are used to building our plates with meat as the star of the dish and having items on the side. With a flexitarian diet, you’ll need to rethink your plate.
Instead of thinking of meat as the star of the dish, consider how you can fill your plate with vegetables and elevate your dish with starches and carbs.
11. Understand your protein options
You and your family will absolutely get enough protein, even when you’re eating less meat. A flexitarian tip to help eating less meat easier is to understand your protein options.
Here are sources of protein for vegetarians:
- Yogurt
- Hemp seeds
- Chia seeds
- Beans
- Edamame
- Nuts/seeds
- Nut butters
- Eggs
- Hummus
- Lentils
- Tofu/temph
- Protein shake
Bonus Flexitarian Tip: Flexitarian Diet Food List
Download this Flexitarian Diet Food List to help eat less meat easier! This is a week of breakfast, lunch, and dinner ideas that your family will love!
I hope these flexitarian tips were helpful!
Other Posts You’ll Love:
Leave a Reply