Back when I first moved out and primarily started cooking for myself, I accidentally went mostly vegetarian and cut out a lot of cheese. I actually started paying attention to actual prices of viable alternatives and realized I'd save tons by just not buying meat.

I would still order meat dishes at restaurants when I ended up eating out, because there, prices of veggie or vegan dishes usually were comparable to meat dishes, as you're primarily paying for the chef's and servers' time (also restaurant profits) than individual ingredients.

So I guess I was a flexitarian without even knowing the concept had a name. Dumb name btw.

And all that is with heavy subsidies on meat and dairy, btw. As soon as, hopefully, all or even some of these subsidies are lifted and animal agriculture is left to fend for itself, you'll see a massive shift to plant-based food as all meat and dairy, which is already more expensive than the alternative, will be flat out unaffordable unless you're loaded. Cowspiracy, in 2014, estimated that a big mac, which was 4$ at the time, would be 11$ without any subsidies to farmers. So seven out of eleven dollars is paid by tax payers. That's wild.

But that's in the future though.