There's a movement afoot to urge people to go meatless on Mondays. Why? The environmental benefits of going meatless are considerable, in addition to the fact that most Americans ingest far more protein (and meat) than they need to, as well as the health benefits of eating more fruits, vegetables, and fiber. According to my university nutrition class, only 10-35% of our balance of macronutrients needs to come from protein; the amount of protein needed depends on a person's body weight (more info here:
Protein - Your Questions Answered - The Nutrition Source - Harvard School of Public Health).
Depending on where you get your meat, it may be raised in a concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO). CAFOs produce large amounts of pollutants. As you can imagine, so many animals in a single space produces a lot of shit, quite frankly--500 million tons, according to the CDC (
National Center for Environmental Health: 2006 National Environmental Public Health Conference - Abstracts - Session D1 | CDC). These animals have to be pumped full of antibiotics in order to be kept healthy because they are kept in such close quarters with other animals. Many of you here are already familiar with the problems associated with CAFOs, so I won't go into greater detail.
So why go meatless on a Monday? For one, it's good for you. Certainly, meat is an easy source of protein and vitamin B12. But it really isn't that difficult to find these nutrients in other foods. B12 can be found in eggs. While you may think--wait, doesn't eating an egg run counter to the whole meatless Monday thing?--no, not quite. It's relatively easy to find eggs that are raised in a humane way with minimal environmental impact. Try your local farmer's market. Additionally, B12 can be found in milk, so drink up, and there are also plenty of fortified foods out there with B12.
Then, you may think--wait, don't vegetarians have a hard time with protein? What's this complete protein baloney? Well, it's just that--baloney. It turns out vegetarians can eat a wide variety of plant-based proteins throughout their day and get all of the essential amino acids they need; there's no reason to worry about whether a protein is complete or incomplete as long as the person in question is paying attention to the wider scope of their diet.
I write this post as a person who has been eating vegetarian about 75% (or more) of the time for almost 5 years now. Don't get me wrong--I'm not going to say no to a steak, but I am going to ask where it came from and how it was raised (thank goodness my meat-loving in-laws are on the same page as me). I know that some of you already do this.
And one last thing for those of you looking to save some bucks in these hard economic times: meat is expensive. Going meatless one day a week may not save you a lot of dough at first, but if you cut out meat at other meals and start getting creative, you CAN save a lot of money.
Here's a video from the Meatless Monday people:
I think their website must be slammed as I can't get it to load, but here's a link for later:
http://www.meatlessmonday.com/
And even Mario Batali is on board:
Chris Elam: Meatless Mondays: Even Mario Batali's Doing It
So how about you? Would you consider giving up meat one day a week?