Flexitarianism is the practice of being flexible about the degree one practices vegetarianism or veganism. A flexitarian might make only vegetarian dishes at home, but eat dishes including meat at the home of family or friends. In 2003, the American Dialect Society voted flexitarian as the year's most useful word, and defined it as "a vegetarian who occasionally eats meat."

Why Flexitarianism

Some reasons people choose to follow flexitarianism are as follows:

• They consider a vegetarian diet to be healthier, but enjoy eating meat.
• They are not ethically opposed to eating meat, but find a vegetarian diet to be less expensive.
• Other members of their household are vegetarian and flexitarian diet is more convenient.
• They believe vegetarian food conserves water and land resources and thus feeds more people.
• Some, like freegans, believe that wasting already-cooked
  
  
  
  food does more damage than eating it.
• They believe it is rude to refuse a meal cooked by a friend, even if it contains meat.
• They oppose the poor conditions or environmental consequences of certain practices in animal husbandry, and hence will only eat what they consider "ethical meat". This can make them effectively vegetarian in many situations.

Origin of term

The earliest known use of the term "flexitarian" occurred in the October 17, 1992 issue of the Austin American-Statesman. In this issue, reporter Linda Anthony wrote an article titled, "Acorn serves up 'flexitarian fare'". The article discussed the recent opening of the new Acorn Cafe and stated that owner Helga Morath calls her fare "flexitarian".