[FB] Terms for limiting meat consumption in one’s diet

(July 30, 2016)

How would you refer to the practice of limiting meat in one’s diet, at a level below what it had been? This Twitter poll is just for fun – the outcome of a conversation, but also a matter of curiosity:

(my comment; emphasis added)

Can’t count the twitter poll as a success, but fwiw here’s the backstory to the terms. Flexitarian is the oldest, being initially a way to describe vegetarians who occasionally eat some meat. Lessetarian (or lessitarian) was coined in the ’90s as a way to describe including less meat in one’s diet. Reducetarian is more recent, with the same sense as the latter, and has been used in a savvy marketing effort. Semi-vegetarian is descriptive, and is the term chosen for the Wikipedia article on the subject of low levels of meat consumption. The twitter poll, such as it was, reflected more votes for the older term, flexitarian, and the well publicized term, reducetarian. Ultimately, as others have said, it’s the concept, not the term that is important. Use of the various terms, however, reflects not only popularity of the concept, but also other factors related to marketing and language. August 4, 2016 at 6:12am


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