Flexitarian - vego with a twist of meat

Karen Fornito thinks meat tastes like blood and will only eat it if it's "disguised" as spaghetti bolognese or on a hawaiian pizza.

She takes the vegetarian option at weddings and foodie functions, but will have well-cooked chicken a couple of times a week and a slice of turkey at christmas – she doesn't strictly abide by the vego rules – she's a flexitarian.

"Up until around age 19 and living at home, we had meat and three veg every night," she said.

"Dad's a typical ocker bloke and wouldn't know what hit him if he didn't see meat somewhere on the plate so we had chops, steak, sausages, rissoles, beef or lamb each night."

But when Fornito, a sports administrator, moved out of home in her 20s, she left her red meat days behind her.

"It all tastes like blood," she said of her distaste for the product.

And while she is happy to cook most meat for her family of six, she won't go near pork, "I can't stand the smell", she said.

There is a common theory amongst flexitarians that fish and chicken don't count as meat. Some go for the veg-aquarian guide of marine life only, others go by the "if it has a face don't eat it" rule and some, like Fornito, will take meat in wolf's clothing.

"The mince and ham are heavily processed and usually disguised in a sauce or in a pizza, so I don't really notice them, they just add flavour to the dish," she says.

"The chicken's a different story, but I usually use it in a casserole or roasted with gravy and I don't seem to have trouble digesting it.

"I don't really count it as meat in the same way as, say, a steak."

Australian nutritionist and chef Zoe Bingley-Pullin said she's familiar with the flexitarian reasoning.

"It's funny isn't it?," Bingley-Pullin, who has just written a book about healthy living, Eat Taste Nourish, says.

"I think it's because they want (meat) in their diet and we tend to bend the rules when we want things in our diet."

Bingley-Pullin, who gave vegetarianism "a good whack" for four years, says she now goes without meat twice a week.

"This whole mix of vegetarian and animal, most of the time that's a good sensible diet," she says.

"What we've done over the years is have a huge amount of this animal protein and not enough vegetables so it's having that balance between the two."

She adds "it's really wrong" for people to think that eliminating meat from their diet will help them loose weight – one of the most common reasons why people "take it on".

Fornito said she feels "bloated" when she eats red meat, has trouble chewing it and her "body doesn't need it".

She doesn't refer to herself as a vegetarian "to avoid confusion", but accepts the flexitarian tag.

"Some people don't know how far to take (the vegetarian label) and they panic if they're having a barbecue (because) they don't know exactly what you will eat," she said.

"There's so much choice these days and I find it better not to mention it."

Flexitarian chicken recipe:

Chicken breast with raw tomato and red capsicum sauce

Ingredients

2, 200g chicken breast

Salt and pepper

1 tspn dried oregano

1 tspn olive oil

Raw sauce

150g ripe fresh tomatoes, skinned and quartered

1 large red capsicum, or 1 small red and 1 small yellow capsicum, cored, de-seeded and quartered

1 tbsp fresh parsley

1 tbspn freshly grated parmesan cheese

1 tbsp olive oil

Preheat oven to 180C. In a bowl mix the chicken breast, salt and pepper, oregano and olive oil. Place the chicken on a baking tray and cover the tray with foil. Cook in the oven for 15 to 20 minutes.

Put the tomato quarters in a food processor with the capsicum, parsley, grated parmesan cheese and one tablespoon olive oil and process to a thick sauce. Place the cooked chicken breast on a plate and cover with the raw tomato sauce.

Serve at once with a salad or vegetables.

(Serves 2)

- AAP