Wondering if you should turn vegetarian to help combat climate change but can't bear to give up your Sunday roast?

There is a middle way that's not only good for the planet – and for farm animals – but also enables you to enjoy a carnivorous treat every now and again, say 12-year-old Ruby Daniel and her father Dick.

The environmentally aware father and daughter, who live in Bath with mum Jane and eight-year-old sister Miranda, have just launched a website, www.feastarian.org, to promote their philosophy of eating.

"A feastarian is someone who eats a wide range of food, including meat and fish," explained Dick, "but only as a treat or 'feast', say two or three times a week at most."

And when you do eat meat or fish, you buy the best you can afford, he added, and definitely avoid battery farmed animals. That way you're contributing to higher animal welfare standards, too.

There's a growing body of opinion that reducing meat consumption is the truly ethical option for anyone worried about global warming.

Only last September, Dr Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the world's leading authority on global warming, urged people to change their diet to help tackle climate change.

Dr Pachauri said the average household would reduce their carbon footprint more if they halved their meat consumption than if they halved their car usage.

He said: "Current global animal production is responsible for 18 per cent of all human-induced green house gas emissions, with more than 60 billion farm animals reared each year. That figure is set to double by 2050. The need to change our diet is increasingly urgent."

Dick, one of the organisers behind Bath's King Bladud's pigs project which saw more than 100 pig sculptures in the city, came up with the idea after attending a talk in Bristol by Sir David King last year.

The former chief scientific adviser to the Government spoke about the unprecedented rapid rise in climate change gases happening both now and forecast for the future.

"He talked about the urgent need to stabilise the level of CO2 in the atmosphere, and said even if we stopped all emissions today, it would take 30 years to stabilise," said Dick.

"In the questions about what we could each do at the end of the lecture, he made a comment about eating less meat."

Afterwards, during a meal with some friends, Dick said he ate meat only occasionally, and made a conscious effort to avoid eating the cheap meat that goes into so many low cost foods, such as supermarket sandwiches and takeaways.

In explaining his approach to eating meat, Dick came up with the term "feastarian".

"It is a positive term, describing a 'feast' as something special and therefore not every day," he said.

At home, 12-year-old Ruby was enthusiastic about the idea. She'd already given up eating meat out of animal welfare concerns.

"I only eat fish because I know it's really good for you," she explained.

Ruby is proud of her involvement in the website, having contributed a lot of the design, and she says all her friends are impressed too.

All she needs, now, is for other people to join the movement and sign up to the feastarian pledge to eat meat or fish only occasionally, to enjoy it as a special feast, to eat only good quality meat, preferably free range or organic, and to avoid all battery farmed meats.

To do so, visit www.feastarian.org.