On the flexitarian diet you eat mostly plants: beans, lentils, tofu, whole grains, vegetables, fruit, nuts and seeds, plus eggs and dairy. Meat and fish stay on the menu in smaller amounts. The original plan sets three levels, from about 26 oz of meat a week for beginners down to 9 oz for experts.
Nothing is banned and there is no calorie target. The idea is to make plants the default and meat the side dish.
Key takeaways
- Mostly plants, some meat: a semi-vegetarian pattern, not a strict diet.
- Three levels: 26 oz, 18 oz or 9 oz of meat a week, with 6-8, 9-14 or 15+ meatless meals.
- Protein is easy to cover: a cup of lentils has 18 g, half a cup of firm tofu 22 g.
- Plant quality matters: whole plant foods were linked with lower diabetes risk, refined ones with higher risk.
- Watch B12, iron and calcium as you cut back on meat.
What is the flexitarian diet?
The term "flexitarian" combines flexible and vegetarian. Registered dietitian Dawn Jackson Blatner laid out the plan in her book The Flexitarian Diet, published by McGraw-Hill in 2008. Most meals are vegetarian, and animal foods are added by choice rather than by habit.
It has become one of the better-known eating patterns in the US. In U.S. News & World Report's Best Diets for 2025, the flexitarian diet was rated the best plant-based diet.
How much meat can you eat on a flexitarian diet?
Blatner's plan sets three levels, as summarized by The Healthy. The weekly ounces refer to meat:
| Level | Meatless meals per week | Meat per week (oz) | Meat per week (g) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Beginner | 6-8 | 26 | 737 |
| Advanced | 9-14 | 18 | 510 |
| Expert | 15 or more | 9 | 255 |
For scale, 26 oz is about eight or nine 3 oz portions, roughly the size of a deck of cards each. A beginner can still have meat at one meal on most days.
The Center for Science in the Public Interest suggests a different, simpler version: one small serving of seafood, poultry or eggs a day (about 3 oz cooked, or 1 egg), optional dairy once a day, and red meat no more than once a week in place of that serving.
Flexitarian diet food list
Eat most often:
- Legumes: lentils, chickpeas, black beans, kidney beans, split peas, edamame
- Soy foods: tofu, tempeh, soy milk
- Whole grains: oats, brown rice, quinoa, farro, barley, whole wheat bread and pasta
- Vegetables and fruit: fresh or frozen, as much variety as you like
- Nuts and seeds: almonds, walnuts, peanut butter, chia, flax, pumpkin seeds
- Fats and flavor: olive oil, avocado, herbs, spices, garlic, tahini, salsa
Eat sometimes:
- Eggs and dairy: eggs, milk, yogurt, cheese
- Fish and poultry: in 3 to 4 oz portions
- Red meat: smaller portions, less often
Limit:
- Processed meats like bacon, sausage and deli meat
- Refined grains, sweets and sugary drinks
- Heavily processed meat substitutes, which can be high in sodium
Plant proteins that replace meat
Protein is the first thing people ask about. Here is how common flexitarian protein foods compare with chicken, using USDA values:
| Food | Serving | Calories | Protein (g) | Fiber (g) | Iron (mg) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lentils, cooked | 1 cup (198 g) | 230 | 17.9 | 15.6 | 6.6 |
| Edamame, prepared | 1 cup (155 g) | 188 | 18.4 | 8.1 | 3.5 |
| Firm tofu | 1/2 cup (126 g) | 181 | 21.8 | 2.9 | 3.4 |
| Tempeh | 3 oz (85 g) | 163 | 17.3 | n/a | 2.3 |
| Black beans, cooked | 1 cup (172 g) | 227 | 15.2 | 15.0 | 3.6 |
| Chickpeas, cooked | 1 cup (164 g) | 269 | 14.5 | 12.5 | 4.7 |
| Greek yogurt, plain nonfat | 6 oz (170 g) | 104 | 17.5 | 0 | 0.1 |
| Eggs, hard-boiled | 2 large (100 g) | 155 | 12.6 | 0 | 1.2 |
| Chicken breast, roasted | 3 oz (85 g) | 140 | 26.4 | 0 | 0.9 |
A popular flexitarian rule of thumb is to swap about a quarter cup of beans for each ounce of meat. That works for volume, but not for protein: a quarter cup of cooked lentils has 4.5 g of protein, while an ounce of cooked chicken breast has 8.8 g. If protein is your goal, use about half a cup of legumes per ounce of meat, or add tofu, tempeh, Greek yogurt or eggs.
For more options, see our complete vegan protein sources guide and the tofu vs chicken comparison.
A sample flexitarian week
This week has two fully meatless days. Meat or fish shows up at 6 of the 21 meals, so 15 meals are meatless, which is the expert range by meal count. To start at the beginner level, add meat or fish to a few more lunches:
| Day | Breakfast | Lunch | Dinner |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monday (meatless) | Oats with Greek yogurt and berries | Lentil soup with whole grain bread | Tofu and vegetable stir-fry with brown rice |
| Tuesday | Eggs on whole grain toast | Chickpea and quinoa salad | Chicken and vegetable stir-fry, mostly vegetables |
| Wednesday | Yogurt with nuts and fruit | Leftover stir-fry | Black bean tacos with cabbage slaw |
| Thursday (meatless) | Tofu scramble with spinach | Hummus and roasted vegetable wrap | Lentil dal with brown rice |
| Friday | Overnight oats with chia | Bean and vegetable burrito bowl | Salmon with roasted vegetables and farro |
| Saturday | Vegetable omelet | Leftover salmon grain bowl | Bean chili with a small amount of ground beef |
| Sunday | Peanut butter banana toast | Minestrone with white beans | Roast chicken with a big salad and potatoes |
Two tricks make the meat go further. Mix it with legumes, as in the chili, so a half portion of beef feeds the same number of people. And put the vegetables in the middle of the plate, with the meat as the side. For a fully plant-based week, our vegan meal prep plan has recipes and a shopping list.
Is the flexitarian diet healthy?
The evidence is encouraging but still building. A 2017 review of 25 studies on semi-vegetarian diets found emerging evidence of benefits for body weight, metabolic health, blood pressure and type 2 diabetes risk.
What you eat in place of meat matters as much as eating less of it. In a study of more than 200,000 US adults followed for up to 28 years, people whose diets were richest in healthy plant foods (whole grains, fruit, vegetables, nuts, legumes) had a 34% lower risk of type 2 diabetes after adjusting for BMI. Diets heavy in refined grains, sweets, sugary drinks and potatoes were linked to a 16% higher risk.
Three nutrients need a little attention when you cut back on meat:
- Vitamin B12 occurs naturally only in animal foods. Eggs and dairy help, and fortified cereals or nutritional yeast cover the gap. The Daily Value is 2.4 mcg.
- Iron from plants is absorbed less well than iron from meat. Pair beans and lentils with vitamin C foods. Our guide to iron for vegetarians has the details.
- Calcium comes easily from dairy, calcium-set tofu or fortified plant milks.
If you are pregnant, planning a diet for a child, or managing a health condition, talk to your doctor or a registered dietitian before you change how you eat.
Does the flexitarian diet help with weight loss?
It can, though the diet does not do it on its own. Bean, lentil and vegetable meals are high in fiber and fairly low in calories, which makes it easier to eat less without feeling hungry.
The best trial data come from vegetarian diets rather than flexitarian ones. A meta-analysis of 12 randomized trials with 1,151 people found that vegetarian diets led to about 2 kg (4.4 lb) more weight loss than non-vegetarian diets over a median of 18 weeks. Vegan diets showed the biggest effect.
Calories still decide the result. A plate of pasta, cheese and pastries is vegetarian, but it is not light. Set a target with the calorie deficit calculator and check your protein with the protein calculator.
Flexitarian vs vegetarian vs vegan
| Food | Flexitarian | Pescatarian | Vegetarian | Vegan |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plants | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Eggs and dairy | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Fish | Sometimes | Yes | No | No |
| Poultry and meat | Sometimes | No | No | No |
For a related plant-forward pattern that also includes fish and olive oil, see the Mediterranean diet nutrition guide.
Environmental impact
Swapping some meat for plants also lowers the climate cost of your food. A large analysis of data from 38,700 farms, by Joseph Poore and Thomas Nemecek in Science (2018), estimated these average emissions per 100 g of protein:
| Protein source | Greenhouse gas emissions (kg CO2e per 100 g protein) |
|---|---|
| Beef (beef herd) | 49.9 |
| Lamb and mutton | 19.9 |
| Cheese | 10.8 |
| Pork | 7.6 |
| Poultry | 5.7 |
| Eggs | 4.2 |
| Tofu | 2.0 |
| Beans and other pulses | 0.84 |
| Peas | 0.44 |
By these averages, 100 g of protein from beef carries about nine times the emissions of the same protein from poultry, and about 60 times that from beans. Replacing beef is the single biggest change a flexitarian can make.
How to start
- Pick two meatless days this week and plan those meals around lentils, beans or tofu.
- Shrink meat portions on the other days to about 3 to 4 oz (85 to 113 g) cooked.
- Stock the basics: canned beans, dry lentils, tofu, frozen vegetables, whole grains.
- Try one new plant-based recipe a week, and keep the ones you like.
- Track protein for a couple of weeks so you can see where it comes from.
Logging a week of mixed meals takes a few seconds each with Nutrify. Take a photo of a lentil bowl or a salmon dinner and check your protein against your daily target.
Sources
- Blatner DJ. The Flexitarian Diet. McGraw-Hill, 2008. Level allowances as summarized by The Healthy (Karen Ansel, MS, RDN; ounces and meatless meals) and WebMD (meatless meals).
- Center for Science in the Public Interest, Going flexitarian? Here's our guide, 2025.
- WebMD, Best diets 2025: Mediterranean still tops rankings (U.S. News best plant-based diet).
- Derbyshire EJ. Flexitarian diets and health: a review of the evidence-based literature. Front Nutr, 2017.
- Satija A et al. Plant-based dietary patterns and incidence of type 2 diabetes in US men and women. PLoS Med, 2016.
- Huang RY et al. Vegetarian diets and weight reduction: a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. J Gen Intern Med, 2016.
- Poore J, Nemecek T. Reducing food's environmental impacts through producers and consumers. Science, 2018. Values from Our World in Data.
- USDA FoodData Central: lentils, FDC 172421; edamame, FDC 168411; tofu, firm, FDC 172475; tempeh, FDC 174272; black beans, FDC 173735; chickpeas, FDC 173757; Greek yogurt, nonfat, FDC 330137; egg, hard-boiled, FDC 173424; chicken breast, roasted, FDC 171477.
- National Institutes of Health, Office of Dietary Supplements, Vitamin B12 fact sheet for consumers.
