VB6. No, it's not a tomato cocktail or the latest version of a computer programming language. VB6 is short for Vegan Before 6, the increasingly popular veggie-heavy diet that converts say can do wonders for both the body and the planet.
Coined and devise by food writer Mark Bittman, the regime is pretty self-explanatory: No animal products, processed food or simple carbohydrates during the day. After 6 p.m., anything goes.
The New York Times food columnist and author was inspired when he read a startling statistic – global livestock production is responsible for more greenhouse gases than all of the world's vehicles combined – while grappling with a bevy of personal health problems, including extra weight, high cholesterol and blood sugar, sleep apnea and bum knees.
Following his VB6 rules, Mr. Bittman slimmed down, got back in shape and helped reduce the pace of global warming by consuming less meat.
(He did allow himself cream and sugar with his coffee.) When he detailed the diet in his recent bestseller Food Matters: A Guide to Conscious Eating , readers took notice.
Now, Mr. Bittman says, there isn't a day that goes by that he doesn't hear from at least a couple of followers on Twitter about it - “sometimes as much as 10 to 20.”
VB6 joins a small but growing trend toward flexitarianism – vegetarians with benefits, if you will. Roused by Mr. Bittman's book and Michael Pollan's manifesto – “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants” – in his book In Defense of Food , flexitarians are assuaging their dietary and environmental worries by sticking to plants, while allowing the occasional meaty indulgence – whether it's only after 6 p.m. or otherwise.
There is a slew of new cookbooks appealing to these semi-vegetarians, including Peter Berley's The Flexitarian Table and Almost Meatless by Joy Manning and Tara Mataraza Desmond. And last year, Oprah went on a 21-day vegan “cleanse” to become a more conscious eater.
For his part, Mr. Bittman prefers the term “less meatarian.”
“It's about reducing the consumption and portion of animal products that you eat,” he says by phone. “It's not even really vegan before six. It's about eating more whole foods – in the real sense of the word, not the supermarket sense.”
Semantics aside, flexitarianism appears to be spreading. “So many people are talking about [Mr. Bittman and Mr. Pollan's] books,” says Nancy Callan, a board member and past president of Earthsave Canada, a non-profit organization that advocates a plant-based diet. “I see an overwhelming increase in flexitarians,” she adds, noting that about 25 per cent of the attendees at the organization's monthly vegan potluck and dine-out dinners are occasional meat eaters.
And if these lipstick vegetarians are changing some of the musty, old stereotypes about veganism and making the movement more palatable to the mainstream, all the better, some say.
“We're not all green-haired militants with tattoos and piercings,” says Ms. Callan, who has noticed a considerable shift in attitudes.
But the oxymoronic notion of a meat-eating vegetarian is still difficult for many hard-core vegans to swallow. “Given the environmental, cruelty and health impact of a meat-based diet, going vegan is best, going vegetarian is good, and being a flexitarian is like smoking two packs of cigarettes instead of 10, beating one pig down the slaughter ramp instead of two, and pouring a pint of gasoline down a drain instead of pouring down a gallon,” Kathy Guillermo, director of research for the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, recently told Newsweek magazine.
Flexitarians don't see why they can't have their meat and eat it, too.
“Veganism makes sense, but I don't think it's a program for most of us,” Mr. Bittman says. “Many things in life are about compromise, and that's exactly what this is.”
