A flexitarian is a person who eats mostly vegetarian food but may sporadically eat meat and/or animal products due to health, cultural, social or pragmatic reasons. There also are a growing number of people who are eating fewer meat dishes because of health or economic reasons, or that there are more meatless dishes to choose from.

About two to three percent of American adults are true vegetarians, according to the Vegetarian Research Group. However, a 2003 study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that two out of three vegetarians say that they can’t stick to a completely vegetarian diet all the time.