Meatless Monday
I’m a practical person. I need practical solutions. When it’s good all around — for personal health, the environment, and for living consciously, I don’t see how it can get more practical. So, the Meatless Monday campaign sounded like a great idea to me. Now I just have to convince my very carnivorous family to try it.
The campaign is focused on convincing the world not to eat chickens, pigs, and other animals — just one day per week (Monday just makes for a nice alliterative title). Maybe Johns Hopkins, Columbia, the American Dietetic Association, and dozens of other health organizations arguing that “the less meat you eat, the better off you’ll be” means it’s worth listening to the idea.
Michael Pollan (In Defense of Food) argued in favor of the campaign on Oprah, saying, “We don’t realize it when we sit down to eat, but that is our most profound engagement in the rest of nature.” If we can just push meat a little bit to the side and move vegetables more to the center of our diet, we’ll be a lot healthier. Pollan’s most recent book calls on all of us to eat “…mostly plants,” and his new movie (Food, Inc.) offers a stomach-churning look at factory-farming and slaughterhouses.
Scientists tell us that if all Americans switched from eating chickens and pigs to eating beans and grains for just one day per week, that would stop as much global warming as if everyone in the U.S. shifted to ultra-efficient Toyota hybrids (which is the weekly equivalent of using 12 billion fewer gallons of gasoline).
For people who think that going totally vegetarian is too challenging, the Meatless Monday campaign offers a gentle easing into the idea of eating without eating animals. For recipes and cooking information, check out the Meatless Monday site.
November 2nd, 2009 at 8:14 pm
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