Most would agree that mindful, sustainable meat intake is better for the planet. And, as it turns out, it could be better for our bodies, too.
If you love meat too much to be vegetarian, but still want to make a difference, this article from The Conversation explores the best of both worlds – flexitarianism.
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Flexitarians focus on having vegetarian meals, rather than just not eating the meat served as part of a meat-based meal. Consciously reducing meat intake on three or more days a week is the suggested cut-off for being called a flexitarian.
Better weight management.
A systematic review of 25 studies found health benefits associated with being flexitarian, including better weight management, lower blood pressure, better metabolic health and lower risk of type 2 diabetes.
One randomised controlled trial looked at the impact of five different plant-based weight-loss diets over six months. Researchers assigned overweight adults to either a vegan, vegetarian, flexitarian or semi-vegetarian, pesco-vegetarian [vegetarians who also eat fish] or omnivore diet.
Those assigned to the vegan diet lost the most weight (losing 7.5 per cent of their starting weight), followed by the vegetarian diet (lost 6.3 per cent), with those in the other groups losing about 3 per cent of starting weight.
Lower risk of mortality.
A cohort study of more than 73,000 Seventh-Day Adventists who are commonly vegetarian, followed them over five years and found that being any type of vegetarian was associated with a lower risk of death (from all causes combined), compared to being a non-vegetarian.
Cohort studies cannot prove causation and there may be other reasons why vegetarians have better health. For example, Seventh-Day Adventists do not smoke or drink alcohol and usually have a healthy lifestyle.
A large study found being ANY type of vegetarian could lower risk of death.
Interestingly, risk reduction was stronger in men compared to women. When researchers drilled down to look at specific types of vegetarian eating patterns, overall risk of dying was lowest for pesco-vegetarians, followed by vegans, then ovo-lacto vegetarians.
It was not significantly different between flexitarian or semi-vegetarians compared to non-vegetarians.
Reduced cancer risk.
Other analyses in Seventh-Day Adventist population groups have looked at cancer risk and found a lower overall cancer risk in any type of vegetarians compared with non-vegetarians.
When the type of vegetarian was considered, ovo-lacto vegetarians had a lower risk of cancers of gut, while vegans had a lower overall cancer risk and for female-specific cancers.
However, another analysis found being any type of vegetarian was not associated with a lower risk of breast cancer, although it did approach significance for vegans in the analysis.
For prostate cancer, vegan Caucasian males had a lower risk compared to other vegetarians and non-vegetarians. For bowel cancer, pesco-vegetarians had the lowest risk, followed by ovo-lacto vegetarians and vegans, with no risk reduction for semi-vegetarians compared to non-vegetarians.
Keep in mind that results from these studies in Seventh-Day Adventists may not necessarily apply directly to other populations.
Type 2 diabetes prevention.
A large study examined plant-based diets in relation to risk of type 2 diabetes in over 200,000 adults.
The healthiest plant-based diets had the largest amounts of wholegrains, fruit, vegetables, nuts, legumes, vegetable oils, tea and coffee as well as the lowest intakes of fruit juice, sweetened beverages, refined grains, potatoes, sweets, desserts and animal foods.
Those eating the healthiest plant-based food pattern had a 66 per cent lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes compared to those with the worst diets. Interestingly, this was independent of body weight, meaning that the risk reduction was the same no matter how much people weighed.
People on a healthy plant-based diet had 66% lower risk of type 2 diabetes.
Another important insight was that those who had “unhealthy” plant-based diets, with high intakes of refined grains, potatoes, sweets, desserts and low intakes of the healthy plant foods had a 16 per cent higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes, irrespective of body weight.
This is a really important finding and shows that it is worth the effort to learn how to make healthy (and yummy) vegetarian food, rather than just leaving the meat off your plate.
And even more reasons to be flexitarian…
Apart from health, there are many reasons why people choose to cut down their meat intake, or to not eat meat at all. These range from concerns about animal welfare, the environment, cost or world hunger.
So whether you want to boost your health, ease pressure on the planet, conserve resources to feed the world, or just enjoy making and eating really interesting food, consider becoming a flexitarian.
This article was originally published on The Conversation.
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