meatless mondays.

I heard about Meatless Monday on the radio this morning. The movement began in 2003 to encourage beef-happy carnivores to cut out their consumption of meat by beginning their work week meatless.

From their website:

Meatless Monday is a non-profit initiative of The Monday Campaigns, in association with the Johns Hopkins’ Bloomberg School of Public Health. We provide the information and recipes you need to start each week with healthy, environmentally friendly meat-free alternatives. Our goal is to help you reduce your meat consumption by 15% in order to improve your personal health and the health of the planet.

This movement challenges participants to give up meat one day a week(15%), for themselves and for the environment. 

Baltimore City Public schools adopted Meatless Mondays for its 80,000 students last year as a way to cut their budget. PETA praised this measure(somewhat predictably), designating the Baltimore City Schools the "Most Progressive Public School District of 2009". On the other hand, Glenn Beck of FOX called this a political indoctrination rather than a health-conscious move: "Americans love our steaks, we love our chops, we love our burgers, and you'll throw me in jail, my last meal will be a giant steak. "

I am not sure about adopting Meatless Mondays in public schools. The overall public movement seems harmless enough, but to adopt this in public schools and leaving kids no option but to meatless meals sounds like a violation of food freedom. I doubt the 2rd graders would appreciate this measure when it is forced on them. 

For those older than 8, the website also has meatless recipes, nutritional guidelines and toolkits to begin this movement in your own community.


Some vegetarian dishes I'd eat (and happily eaten):

But today's definitely not a meatless Monday for me! I don't think I can miss out on Umma's home cooking.