THE TERM “FLEXITARIAN” COMBINES FLEXIBLE AND VEGETARIAN TO DESCRIBE A DIET THAT REDUCES MEAT INTAKE WITHOUT EXCLUDING IT ALTOGETHER. THE HEALTH AND WEIGHT LOSS ADVANTAGES ARE SIGNIFICANT.

HEALTH / WITH DR ZAC TURNER

STUDIES SHOW a strong connection between eating less meat, eating a plant-based diet and boosting your health and life expectancy. It also makes sense that going flexitarian helps weight management because it lowers your carbohydrate intake. A recent Harvard study showed that swapping meat and full-fat dairy (saturated fat-rich foods) with plant based equivalents such as legumes, nuts and seeds (rich in polyunsaturated fats) can reduce the risk of heart disease by 19 percent.

A study over 26 years, published in 2006, showed that people eating processed foods were 21 percent more likely to have cardiovascular disease, and 16 percent more prone to cancer compared to those who didn’t consume processed meat. An estimate was made that if the study group had eaten half as much meat, deaths in the group would have declined by 9.3 percent among men and 7.6 percent among women.