Diets we support › Vegetarian / Pescatarian / Flexitarian

How it works

You build meals around plant proteins like beans, lentils, tofu, and tempeh, plus eggs and dairy (and fish or seafood if you're pescatarian, or a little meat and poultry if you're flexitarian), paired with vegetables and whole grains. The main thing a good plan does for you is make sure protein and key nutrients are covered at every meal.

Who it's a good fit for

Anyone cutting back on meat or dropping it entirely (whether that's all the way to plant-based or just eating a little less of it) for health, ethical, or environmental reasons.

Vegetarian, pescatarian, flexitarian, and everything in between

"Vegetarian" isn't one single thing, so this plan flexes to match how you actually eat. Most people are lacto-ovo vegetarians, keeping both eggs and dairy, and that's the starting point here. If you skip one of those, you're lacto (dairy, no eggs) or ovo (eggs, no dairy), and you simply leave it off. If you eat fish and seafood but no other meat, you're pescatarian, which this plan handles too. And if you eat mostly plants but still like a little meat or poultry now and then, that's flexitarian, the most relaxed spot on the spectrum. When you start, you set simple toggles for eggs, dairy, fish & seafood, and meat & poultry, so your plate matches you without any labels to memorize.

Lacto-vegetarian keeps dairy (milk, cheese, and yogurt) but leaves eggs off the plate. It's one of the most common ways to eat vegetarian around the world, often for cultural or religious reasons, and dairy makes it easy to cover protein and calcium alongside beans, lentils, tofu, nuts, and whole grains. On this plan you just switch the eggs toggle off, and every recipe you see is built to work without them.

Ovo-vegetarian is the mirror image: eggs stay, dairy goes. It's a natural fit if you're lactose intolerant, have a dairy allergy, or simply feel better without dairy, while still getting the protein, vitamin B12, and everyday versatility that eggs bring to breakfasts and baking. Switch the dairy toggle off and the plan leans on eggs, legumes, tofu, nuts, seeds, and fortified plant milks to keep your protein and calcium on track.

The flexitarian option

Flexitarian just means flexible vegetarian, a term coined by dietitian Dawn Jackson Blatner. You eat mostly plants and still have meat, poultry, or fish sometimes, in smaller amounts than a typical plate. It's the least restrictive way to eat more plants, and it's become the most popular on-ramp there is. More than half of younger adults now describe themselves this way. In your plan it's simply the vegetarian setup with the meat-and-poultry toggle switched on: plant-forward by default, with room for the occasional serving of meat.

Where a vegetarian diet helps

Eating this way has a solid track record, and the heart is where it shows up most. In the research, vegetarians have roughly a third lower rate of dying from heart disease, and they tend to run lower LDL cholesterol and blood pressure. It's also tied to a lower risk of type 2 diabetes, a lower body weight, and about 18 percent lower cancer rates in one large review. If heart health or high cholesterol is on your mind, this is a well-supported way to eat for it. A lot of the benefit traces back to the fiber and steadier blood sugar that come with eating more plants.

Two honest notes, though. First, and this is the big one, these benefits come from a vegetarian diet built on real food. Skipping meat but living on pasta, cheese pizza, chips, and donuts is technically vegetarian, and it won't do any of this for you. A vegetarian diet heavy on refined carbs and sweets is actually tied to higher heart-disease risk, not lower. The benefit is in the vegetables, whole grains, beans, and nuts, and that whole-food version is exactly what we build. Second, a lot of this evidence comes from following people over time, and vegetarians often live healthier in other ways too, so the diet gets some credit that belongs to the whole picture.

Doing it well

A vegetarian diet is straightforward to do well, and it isn't unsafe for anyone as a rule. Because eggs and dairy stay on the table, you've already got good sources of B12, calcium, and complete protein, so there's less to engineer. The nutrients worth keeping an eye on are iron and zinc, which come in a less absorbable form from plants. Pairing them with a little vitamin C, like a squeeze of lemon or some peppers, helps your body take up the iron.

Pregnancy, breastfeeding, and feeding growing kids are the times to be a bit more deliberate about iron, B12, and zinc, though a well-planned vegetarian diet covers all of it. Your plan is built with these in mind.

If you eat fish or meat, a lot gets easier

Here's a quiet advantage of the pescatarian and flexitarian versions: a little fish or meat takes care of the handful of things a fully plant-based plate has to plan around. Both are complete proteins, and both bring B12, iron, and zinc in a form your body absorbs easily, the exact nutrients that take the most effort on a strict vegetarian or vegan diet. Fish has a bonus on top: the omega-3 fats in salmon, sardines, and trout are the kind your brain and heart actually use, and they're hard to get in a usable form from plants. So whether you lean pescatarian or flexitarian, you get all the plant-forward benefits with far less to engineer.

A couple of things to keep in mind. With fish, watch mercury: lean on the low-mercury choices most of the time, salmon, sardines, trout, and shrimp, about two or three servings a week, and go easy on the high-mercury ones like shark, swordfish, king mackerel, and bigeye tuna. With meat, the flexitarian idea is small amounts of it, with poultry and fish ahead of red meat and processed meats like bacon and deli slices kept occasional. Your plan already leans on the low-mercury fish and on poultry.

Common questions