The Meatless Monday Proposal
What could be simpler than a chicken sandwich? Take a bloody chicken breast, roll it in frying powder, sink it into the oily deep-fry machine, wait a few minutes as the skin become drenched in grease, add a few mixed seasonings, and stick it on a soggy bun. It is a typical American operation that happens uncountable times a day in fast food chains all around the country. Meats like chicken, pork, and beef have always been in our diets. Since the industrial revolution, people’s consumption rate of meats has soared drastically. We, as a society, are consuming twice as much meat as we did back in the 1950s (Hill). Eating meat is a significant cause of serious problems, and greater demand for meat results: the growth of factory farms, cruelty to animals, over usage of antibiotics, pollution in our environments, and loss of significant natural resources. It is apparent that the rate of current consumption of meat has greatly affected biodiversity, environment, and human health.
In 2003, one solution, advocated by Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Center, is that people should abstain themselves from consuming meat and other meat by-products on Mondays. Going meatless once a week could potentially reduce one’s risk of developing chronic preventable conditions like cardiovascular diseases, hypertension, and obesity, as well as would aid in saving precious natural resources like fresh water and fossil fuels and reduce our carbon footprints on this planet. According to the Meatless Mondays Campaign website, the Meatless Monday movement has extended its influences on a global level; it is expanding its awareness in twenty-four nations. In subsequent years, public health institutions such as Columbia Mailman School of Public Health and the Maxwell School at Syracuse University joined the campaign (Meatless Monday Website). It shows that the participation rate of this Meatless Monday movement worldwide is still rising.
Before we look at the advantages of the Meatless Mondays, it is important to see why many people are opposed to being semi-vegetarians. First, opponents may argue that they cannot survive without proteins from meat sources. The opponents may regularly grumble about how they may be prone to diseases due to weak immune systems if they do not take proteins from meat. In fact, proteins do not necessarily have to be from meat sources. During early centuries, Asians had adapted to live with diets of tofu and tempeh to supplement their protein requirements during meat-deficient seasons. It is historically proven viable that there are many other protein sources from meat alternatives. In fact, many protein products today are derived from numerous sources besides meat, including peas, beans, rice, fungi, and fishes. Therefore, for people out there who may worry about their intakes of protein, it is reassured that there are many other possible healthier sources of proteins available for their body absorptions. Furthermore, opponents may claim that without meat their foods are tasteless. However, when they think about obesity and high blood pressures may have already secretly crept into their bodies, they should probably revise their thoughts about eating a balanced diet with reduced meat consumption. In addition, opponents may claim that there are other ways of saving the world and environment, and that it is not wise to even bother in changing their diet habits and suppress their appetites. They think that combating global warming can be done through changing driving habits, such as driving fuel-efficient or electric-powered cars and taking public transportation and doing more recycling. The common belief that we can slow the pace of global warming down by taking public transportation and advocating the usage of renewable energies actually only brings a small impact, and taking cars off American roads may reduce work efficiencies, human productivities and may also lead to a slow economic downturn. So in the face of these opposing voices, why should we support the proposal for expanding the Meatless Monday movement? One answer is that some of the fears about avoiding meat for a day are overstated. It is true that human bodies need meat as one protein source to sustain the normal functioning of our systems, but improvements in meat production technology make our ethical values questionable. The existence of meat factories leads to cheap meat, and such production factories have purposely undermined animals’ welfares to account for greater profits. Animals are being treated unethically for their fleshes in our dining tables. According to Singer and Mason, industry-grown chickens are bred to live a short life in an unpleasant living conditions when “a stocking density of 96 square inches for a bird of average market weight – that’s about the size of a standard sheet of American [letter] typing paper” (23). Such crowded living spaces for chickens have made chicken farms breeding places for avian flus, which makes consumption of poultry products dangerous in certain circumstances. On the other hand, reduced consumption of meat in our diet can cast a larger impact in our society on the issue of global warming and make the climate problem solvable, as United Nations reported that raising animals for food causes about eighteen percent of all global warming (Bily 63). As a result, more impact in our ecosystem can be achieved with reduction in our meat intake.
Although making this simple and conscious decision to go Meatless on Mondays means forgoing three meals of enjoyment of juicy meat per week, such a decision is much safer for the environment. Meat production requires a great effort of conversion from crops into meat, which is an energy exhaustion process. More than a half of Americans’ harvested acreages go to feeding livestock (Lappé 3). It is statistically shocking that beef production uses a hundred times the water than most vegetables do (Millstone and Lang 38). There are many other varied statistics out there to show that turning animals into meat requires energy-intensive stages. Even though the numbers and units of those statistics may vary, their converted lower bound is ninety pounds of water per pound of beef produced, and upper bound is a hundred-twenty-five (Millstone and Lang 38, Lappé 3). The bounds are still close enough to prove that meat production exacerbates our energy crises. When considering climate change, it is apparent that animal farming and raising animals for human consumption is a nightmare for global warming, relative to plant agriculture and producing grains and beans. Animal farms emit a great amount of greenhouse gases to trap the heat from escaping earth’s surface. Using statistical analysis, the researchers found out that meat causes more emissions than those of all of transportation means of cars, trains, planes, buses, and ships combined (Hill). The environmental benefit of cutting meat out of our diets therefore outweighs the enjoyment of meat in our diet.
To combat pollutions and global warming caused by meat production we need to invest in a proposal that could make a large difference fairly quickly. Well, a vegetarian or vegan lifestyle is certainly one confident path to go. However, for those who may say “we will miss the savor of meat” or may not be ready to adapt such a drastic change in their eating habits, semi-vegetarian is a practical option. Meatless Monday is the feasible solution by replacing meat with plant-based food on Monday every week to improve the health of the population as well as the health of our planet. The Meatless Monday movement, originated the idea that the meat-free meals on Mondays, is warranted by multiple studies that have shown that Mondays make the perfect time to reevaluate food choices for the coming week after a weekend of indulging in unhealthy foods.
Even though the Meatless Monday Campaign has been running for eleven years, its influences have reached global height; however, many Americans are not aware of the existence of this movement. Especially, as compared to states of California, New York, and Pennsylvania where their public school systems have joined the Meatless school meal movement, the campaign has not yet expanded its awareness in most of the southern states.
The most effective way of spreading the message of the Meatless Monday movement is via the school system of Pre-K to high schools. In the state of Florida, many public school meals are pumped with fat and cholesterol. Instead of purchasing raw products shipped from all around the United States, the county officials can distribute the money to buy local produces from farmers’ markets while reducing food miles in school meal systems. School chefs can use the Meatless Mondays to experiment with cuisines and feature seasonal produce. The school food service team can develop a menu of meatless options to promote each Monday; it is not necessary that recipes have to vary each week. It is possible to serve children’s favorite dishes like veggie burgers and macaroni cheese as Meatless Monday staples. Sometimes, adults have unconsciously overlooked that kids’ favorite macaroni cheese is not a meat substitute but a perfect choice to go meatless. Schools can also participate in fun Meatless Mondays activities and work with teachers to tie nutrition education into their daily lessons. The young generation, who are the rising future, are more likely to accept good ideas and can thus establish a lifetime of healthier eating habits through this Meatless Monday school program, and they can also bring home the health messages to their parents and encourage their parents to join the movement of eating more plant-based foods and less meat. School can also create the “Meatless Monday” passports to stamp students who tried different cultural meat-free dishes on Mondays (The Meatless Monday Website).
On community level, social media outlets are potential starting places for the Meatless Monday Movement. Neighbors in a community can exchange their reflections, and swap recipes over the internet. Community awareness can also be achieved by bringing local businesses together, especially the restaurants in the community. Every Monday is typically a slow day for restaurant business; it is likely to persuade local restaurants’ chefs to promote the Meatless Monday dishes or menus to help them attract valuable customers on Mondays and promote community health awareness.
Meatless Monday is not a day to let your stomach growl; instead, it is a chance you can experiment with a variety of healthier meat alternatives from different cuisines that is worth to add to your personal cookbook. Eating green by reducing the amount of meat in our diet is the start to knowing how we can efficiently use our plates to cut our carbon footprint, and be cruel-free to tender Mother Nature. An influential food and nature journalist, Michael Pollan, says that he upholds the idea of the Meatless Monday and practices it in his own household because the Meatless Monday is not forcing Americans to go to the extreme side of eating only plants (Pollan 336). The Meatless Monday is a simple let-go of one day of meat that can be achieved if you are concerned about the personal health and the health of the earth. Meat reduction on dining tables one meal per week saves carbon dioxide emission equivalent to taking half a million cars off of U.S roads (Bily 63). By pushing meat a little bit out of our dining plates, and center plant-based food on our diet one day per week, we are going to live a lot healthier and the planet is going to breathe less heavily.
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Work Cited
Lappé, Frances M. Diet for a Small Planet. New York: Ballantine Books, 1982. Print.
Millstone, Erik, and Tim Lang. “Animal Feed.” The Atlas of Food: Who Eats What, Where, and Why. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008. 38-39. Print.
Bily, Cynthia A., ed. Pollution. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2010. Issues That Concern You. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 16 Nov. 2014.
Hill, Graham. “Why I’m a Weekday Vegetarian.” TED. TED Talks, 16 May 2010. Web. 25 Nov. 2014. <http://www.ted.com/talks/graham_hill_weekday_vegetarian?language=en>.
Riley, Tess. “From Vegan Beef to Fishless Filets: Meat Substitutes Are on the Rise.” Theguardian. Guardian News and Media, 15 Oct. 2014. Web. 20 Nov. 2014. <http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/food-blog/2014/oct/15/vegan-vegetarian-diet-beef-fishless-filets-meat-substitutes-rise>.
Pollan, Michael. “The Feedlot: Making Meat.” The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals. New York: Penguin, 2006. Print.
Pollan, Michael. “The Omnivore’s Dilemma.” The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals. New York: Penguin, 2006. Print.
Lerner, Sid, Peggy Neu, Mark Driscoll, and Vanessa Protass. “Meatless Monday.” Meatless Monday. The Monday Campaigns, Inc., 6 May 2003. Web. 28 Nov. 2014. <http://www.meatlessmonday.com/>.
Singer, Peter, and Jim Mason. “The Hidden Cost of Cheap Chicken.” The Way We Eat: Why Our Food Choices Matter. Emmaus, Pa: Rodale, 2006. Print.