ToTT: I Was A Child Flexitarian

This post ties in with my forthcoming review of Dawn Jackson Blatner's THE FLEXITARIAN DIET -- tune in November 12 to "Talk of the Town with Parker Sunshine."

Last week I mentioned the word flexitarian, which as far as I can find surfaced sometime in the early oughts to describe an eating pattern that is partially, but not completely, vegetarian. But the concept was not new to me -- in fact, even though I didn't know it, I've been a flexitarian most of my life.

As I mentioned in my review of the diet book SKINNY BITCH, my mom is a vegetarian, and as the primary (really only) cook in the house she incorporated a lot of veggie-friendly dishes into our diets. Mom gave up meat in college and, over the protests of my grandmother, stayed that way through 3 healthy pregnancies and never looked back. She never tried to get us to become vegetarians, and she still made hot dogs and chicken nuggets and so on, but we probably ate veggie more than half the time -- I wasn't exposed to the classic meat-and-potatoes meals except at my grandparents' house.

These days my siblings and I are all content omnivores: I gave up meat for a summer and swore off most red meat for 8 years, but right now I would consider myself a flexitarian of circumstance: I don't make meat very much because it isn't convenient. It takes longer to make than a PB&J and, if you forget about it in the fridge (as I am wont to do), it spoils faster. But I don't think I was adversely affected by eating less meat as a kid; I didn't always like my mom's cooking, but we were all well fed.

Previously:
Announcing the next Talk of the Town pick