Sometimes at a restaurant or potluck, someone sees me choose to eat a salad, or vegetable stir fry,
or something else without any meat, and sees me walk past the chunks of greasy steak,
and asks me if i'm vegetarian. Well, sortof yes, but
not really. I describe myself as a "vegetarian who cheats a lot" which logically would be "nonvegetarian"
except that i don't belong with other types who eat mounds of meat and fat slabs
of steak with maybe a spoonful of peas on the side. I'll skip the meat, mostly, yet i am not anti-meat.

I prefer fresh fruits, cereal with nuts and fruits, casseroles, grilled cheese
sandwiches, anything with pasta, rice and beans in a yummy sauce, soups... well
there are a lot of foods i like. Sometimes i have a turkey pot pie, a sizzling
hot steak fajita (but let the others at the table have most of the steak bits), and
of course pizza is always better with pepperoni. Once or twice a year i even get a
honking big cheeseburger, but only at a fine restaurant and if it's loaded with
yum-yum additives such a tomato slice, chilis, exotic sauces etc. Once or twice
a year is plenty enough for me.

So, i am a vegetarian who cheats a lot, sometimes in a big way. There is a word
for vegetarian: "Vegetarian" to be specific. There are also "Vegans" - these are people from a planet
orbiting the star Vega who eat no dairy foods.
I'm certainly not that -- I want my ice cream, my gourmet grilled cheese sandwiches,
the fizzed milk in my latte! There are also "cannibals" but that's outside the scope
of this article, as is "Republican" and "Mormon" and "Walker of Tightropes Strung Between Skyscrapers"... i digress.

Certainly "Carnivore" could apply in a technical, logical way, but to go around
telling everyone i'm carnivore would be misleading. Someone's apt to hand me a plate
loaded with a hunk of lamb chop or a pile of pork, with a spoonful of boiled carrots on the side. Phoo! The way things usually go when i eat out at an restaurant or other situation where others are serving food, is i'll say i'm vegetarian and be pointed to the salad bar. Eh, no thanks, i don't want to eat cold wet salads every meal every day for ever and ever. The best situtation, if i'm not eating at home, is at a potluck or picnic, i can spoon up whatever i like: mostly plant-based food with dairy substances, and maybe a tiny bit of meat for decoration.

Turns out there is a word for weirdos like me - "flexitarian". It's in wikipedia.
Vegetarians who keep their diet flexible enough for a occasional bit of chicken or sausage.
Also, depending on who you ask, the term includes, or nearly includes, regular carnivores who occasionally seek a veggie meal, for variety or health. I found this new word while websurfing today. The Treehugger newsletter
today had a link to the article "Unhappy Meal" by Michael Pollan in the
New York Times.

More about Flexitarians at MSNBC

Anyone who needs a scare towards vegetarianism, if not all the way there, could
surf over to Facts & Resources on Howard Lyman's site. Or you
may want to explore going even further, past vegetarianism, past vegan, and arrive at
a raw foods diet.