Weekly Menu And Shopping List
Meatless Monday is an international campaign that encourages people to cut out meat on Mondays to improve their health and the health of the planet. Reducing meat consumption by 15% (the equivalent of one day a week) lessens the risk of chronic preventable illness and has a strong positive impact on the environment. MeatlessMonday.com offers weekly meat-free recipes, articles, tips and news.
Affiliation
Meatless Monday is a non-profit initiative of The Monday Campaigns Inc. in association with the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health Center for a Livable Future. The program follows the nutrition guidelines developed by the USDA. Meatless Monday is part of the Healthy Monday initiative. Healthy Monday encourages Americans to make healthier decisions at the start of every week. Other Healthy Monday campaigns include: Do The Monday 2000, Quit and Stay Quit Monday, Move it Monday, Monday Mile, and others.
Health Benefits
On average Americans consume 8 ounces of meat per day, 45% more than the USDA recommends. Meat typically contains higher levels of saturated fat than plant based foods. Saturated fat intake has been linked to multiple preventable illnesses, including heart disease, stroke, diabetes and various cancers. by removing meat once a week, the average American reduces saturated fat intake by 15%, diminishing the risk of these diseases.
A ten year longitudinal study has also linked rates of personal meat consumption to age of death. The results of this research suggest that the deaths of 1.5 million Americans over a ten year period can be contributed to excessive consumption of red and processed meats.
Chronic preventable illnesses -- including those associated with excessive saturated fat intake—cause 70% of all deaths in the United States. In 2007 alone Americans spent 1.7 trillion dollars on health care related to preventable illnesses.
Environmental Benefits
According to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization the meat industry generates nearly one fifth of the man-made greenhouse gas emissions that lead to climate change. Geophysicists at the Bard Center and the University of Chicago estimate that curbing meat consumption by 20% (which could be achieved through Meatless Mondays) would lower greenhouse gas emissions as dramatically as every American switching to an ultra-efficient hybrid vehicle.
The U.N. also found that current meat production methods cause nearly half of all stream and river pollution. Meat also requires a great deal of fresh water to manufacture. The production of a pound of beef takes approximately 2,500 gallons of water, compared to a pound of soy, which requires only 220 gallons. By switching to soy on Mondays each individual could save about 890 gallons of water a week.
As of 2006, forty calories of fossil fuel energy go into every calorie of U.S. feed lot beef (manufacture, transport and storage included). By comparison, a calorie of plant-based protein only requires 2.2 calories of fossil fuel. If the population of the United States went meatless every Monday for a year, 12 billion gallons of gasoline would be saved.
Philosophy
Meatless Monday focuses its initiative on Mondays for multiple reasons. Monday is typically the beginning of the work week, the day when individuals settle back into their weekly routine. Unhealthy habits that prevailed over the weekend can be forgotten and replaced by positive choices.
A weekly reminder to restart healthy habits also encourages success. A 2009 trial published in the American Journal of Preventative Medicine provided individuals with weekly health prompts and encouragement. Approximately two thirds of participants responded with improvements in their overall health, eating habits and physical activity levels.
History
During World War I, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) urged families to reduce consumption of key staples to help the war effort. Conserving food would support U.S. troops as well as feed populations in Europe where food production and distribution had been disrupted by war. To encourage voluntary rationing, the FDA created the slogan “Food Will Win the War” and coined the terms "Meatless Monday" and "Wheatless Wednesday” to remind Americans to reduce intake of these products.
Herbert Hoover was the head of the Food Administration as well as the American Relief Association during Woodrow Wilson's presidency, and played a key role implementing the campaign, which was one of Hoover’s many attempts to encourage volunteerism and sacrifice among Americans during the war. The FDA provided a wide variety of materials in addition to advertising, including recipe books and menus found in magazines, newspapers & government sponsored pamphlets.
The campaign returned with the onset of World War II, calling upon women on the home front to play a role in supporting the war effort. During this time meat was being rationed, along with other commodities like sugar and gasoline.
Meatless Monday was restarted in 2003 as a public health awareness program. The campaign was endorsed by the Center for a Livable Future (a division of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health) as well as over 20 public health schools. In April of 2009, Meatless Monday launched an informational video noting the effects of meat consumption on climate change.
Meatless Monday is based in the United States, but meatless days (Monday in particular) are gaining popularity worldwide. Meat-free Mondays exist in the United Kingdom both as an advertising campaign for Goodlife Foods and as an environmental campaign. On June 15th, 2009 Paul McCartney and his daughters Stella and Mary launched Support Meat-free Monday. In December 2009 Meatless Mondays launched in Australia .
In May of 2009, the city of Ghent, Belgium became the first city with 'official' weekly vegetarian days. Veggie Thursday (“or Donderdag Veggiedag” in Dutch) was created by the Ethical Vegetarian Alternative, an organization partially funded by the Flemish government. Israeli magazine Al Hashulchan (On the Table) introduced the Sheni Tzimchoni (Vegetarian Monday) initiative in June 2009. Dozens of Israel’s top restaurants will create innovative meatless meals on Mondays throughout July and August 2009.
Press Timeline
- Woman's Day magazine has included Meatless Monday on their monthly recipe calendar since 2004. Each menu offers healthy meal options for four and includes a set weekly shopping list.
- From September of 2008 to July 2009, Kim O’Donnel, a food journalist and trained cook, offered weekly Meatless Monday recipes in her Washington Post column “A Mighty Appetite”.
- The Face on Your Plate: The Truth About Food, written in March of 2009 by Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson acknowledged Meatless Monday as a way to reduce meat consumption and improve overall health.
- Radio host Richard Greene has been discussing Meatless Monday on his show Hollywood! Clout since March 2009. He’s had a variety of guests discuss Meatless Monday and vegetarian options, including Kathy Freston, Rory Freedman (author of Skinny Bitch) and Heather Mills.
- In March 2009 Woodcreek High School in Roseville California began a Meatless Monday program in order to reduce climate change. Students signed pledges and created a video documenting their action.
- Articles regarding Meatless Monday have been published by several authors in The Huffington Post since April 2009. Notable contributor Kathy Freston is author of several self-help & wellness books, including The Quantum Wellness Cleanse.
- In his book In Defense of Food (May, 2009) journalist Michael Pollan coined the phrase "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." He has since cited Meatless Monday as a way to reach this goal.
- Carole Carson, author and spokeswoman for AARP's “Fat 2 Fit” challenge, began offering Meatless Monday recipes to AARP’s online community in June of 2009.
- In June of 2009, the film Food, Inc. listed Meatless Monday as one of the 10 Things You Can Do To Change Our Food System.
- Also in June of 2009 leading recipe site Epicurious teamed up with NutritionData.com to start offering weekly Meatless Monday recipes.
- In July of 2009, The Huffington Post Green began a weekly Meatless Monday recipe column. The articles are written by nationally syndicated columnist Ellen Kanner, The Edgy Veggie.
- Baltimore City Public Schools began a system-wide Meatless Monday program in 2009. The initiative also includes health education and produce from local sources. BCPS's efforts were acknowledged by Johns Hopkins University in September of 2009, when they were given the Center for a Livable Future Award.
References
- ^ http://www.mypyramid.gov/
- ^ http://www.healthymonday.org/
- ^ http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=532
- ^ http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=11234
- ^ http://archinte.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/169/6/562?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=1&author1=sinha&andorexacttitle=and&andorexacttitleabs=and&andorexactfulltext=and&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&sortspec=relevance&fdate=3/1/2009&resourcetype=HWC
- ^ http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/overview.htm
- ^ http://geosci.uchicago.edu/~gidon/papers/nutri/nutriEI.pdf
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