Food for thought: Martyn Kelly on flexitarianism

‘Fox’s words challenged a dour Puritan stereotype.’

'‘When you fast do not look sombre as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show men that they are fasting.' | Photo: by Caju Gomes on Unsplash

The word ‘flexitarian’, for a semi-vegetarian diet, only entered the Oxford Dictionary in 1998, and it was not widely used until at least a decade afterwards. The idea that it encapsulates, however, is as old as time. The food historian Pen Vogler has noted that, in medieval Britain, there were so many dietary rules for Catholics that the entire country was de facto flexitarian.

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