Meat is so OUT.
Has anyone heard of the Meatless Monday campaign? It’s a trend circling the globe, growing in popularity, and it doesn’t look like it’s about to stop. In fact, it’s been getting bigger and bigger since 2003, when the campaign first started by Sid Lerner – a big guy in advertising. Only recently has it became such well-known and practiced. What is Meatless Monday? It is an international campaign meant to encourage people to not eat meat on Mondays as a way to improve their health – and the health of the planet. One day a week, people choose to prepare vegetarian or vegan meals. Hundreds of new meatless recipes are available all the time. Monday was chosen because it is the perfect day to start over after making unhealthy choices over the weekend. Start the week fresh. This also acts as a weekly reminder to adopt healthy habits. People who are participating in this campaign have noticed positive effects and significant improvements in their health (such as lower cholesterol and blood pressure).
While this campaign continues to attract attention, we still don’t think that it’s enough. We want to help spread the word. We’ve been researching it and wanted to share some interesting things that we’ve learned about Meatless Mondays so far.
- Articles, stories, blogs, and more are being released more and more in the news. They all seem to say the same thing: less meat = many benefits. The list of benefits can be summarized in 3 segments: it slows global warming, it improves your health, and it supports local economies (sourcing of local produce).
- The Huffington Post – a well-known and popular news website – has an entire section of their website dedicated to providing information relating to the Meatless Monday campaign [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/meatless-monday/]
- Major cities across the globe are jumping on the Meatless Monday bandwagon – Vancouver, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Cincinnati, and more. They have restaurants that don’t serve meat that day of the week, as well as schools that only serve vegetarian meals on Mondays.
- Restaurants are slowly starting to embrace this campaign and are making their Monday menus meat-free. A variety of popular New York City restaurants have already started. Also, a huge step was when the Las Vegas restaurant Carnevino Italian Steakhouse embraced Meatless Mondays. If a steakhouse can do it, why not every other restaurant?
- Vegetarian and vegan recipes are being shared all the time – in emails, on social media, and in blogs. There are websites being created all the time with a focus on providing only meat-free recipes. This isn’t just because of Meatless Mondays, but because of the amount of health benefits of changing your diet, such as living longer! Here is a neat Pinterest account with Meatless Monday recipes [http://www.pinterest.com/iamnotdaisy/meatless-mondays-recipe-ideas/]
- Dozens of celebrities are endorsing this campaign as well, including Bill Gates, Oprah, James Cameron, Olivia Wilde, Simon Cowell, and more! Sir Paul McCartney has taken the idea to the UK and has called it “Meat Free Monday” [http://www.meatfreemondays.com/]. He and his wife have created a “Meat Free Monday Cookbook” and had even encouraged the Hard Rock Cafe London to introduce a Meat Free Monday menu.
- Lots of meat producers and related industries are (obviously) upset over the Meatless Monday campaign. Why? Well, less money for them of course! That’s all it ever comes down to anyways.
- Social media loves Meatless Monday! On Monday’s, the hashtag #meatlessmonday trends on Twitter and the results are significant [http://www.symplur.com/healthcare-hashtags/meatlessmonday/]. People have created Twitter, Instagram, and blogging accounts just to talk about this campaign. You can follow, like, share, tag – anything to do with Meatless Mondays.
- So, the more you learn about it, doesn’t it kind of make you want to start going meatless on Mondays? Just one day a week – it won’t be too difficult, will it? Improve your health and the planet with one little day. Don’t worry, Turkey Tuesday is just a day away!
Other references:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meatless_Monday
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129025298
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