Within the year of 2015, we witnessed so many of our fellow humans turn into vegans, whether it was for health reasons, animal activism, or the environment, it was a complete overhaul of the Western food culture. Veganism is sure to continue it’s traction in 2016, but there are a few new diets, or lifestyles, that are taking hold in big and new ways.
One of those is the diet of a climaterian — and essentially it’s just about cutting out beef and lamb. Switching to pork and poultry saves a tonne of CO2 every year.
“The climatarian message is so simple that people grasp the idea and think, yep, this is something I can do. It’s a very simple shift,” Hartigan told The Huffington Post of the climatarian diet. “Reducing your intake of meat is a difficult concept for people to deal with. What we’re aiming for with this is making it very clear, simple and easy.”
Other “micro-identities” include locavores and Paleo enthusiasts, fruitarians and, here’s another rookie, reducetarians.
Brian Kateman is a co-founder and president of the New York-based Reducetarian Foundation, an education and research nonprofit established last year.
According to Kateman, reducetarians are individuals who are dedicated to cutting back on their meat intake.
Being a vegan requires a complete 360, it’s not just a diet, it’s increasingly becoming a culture, an all encompassing entity, so something simple like ‘reducetarian’ is resonating.
“We don’t want to dictate why a person is eating less meat,” Kateman said. “We want to celebrate them for whatever reason they have for going on this journey.”
“People view behavior as an all-or-nothing premise, especially on something as morally charged as meat. But it’s simply not true that it has to be all or nothing,” Kateman explained. “I think changing the tone of the conversation around meat consumption is an incredibly important thing.”
