Think Green Live Clean

Photo Credit: Dorcas Sinclair

You drive a hybrid, you carry an aluminum water bottle and you tote your groceries in a reusable shopping bag, but did you know that the amount of meat you eat is impacting the environment? This is the idea fueling the Meat Free Mondays movement, which started across the pond in the U.K. and has since surfaced in the U.S. as Meatless Monday.

Meatless Monday is a non-profit initiative of The Monday Campaigns, in association with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. During World War I and II, Presidents Truman and Roosevelt urged Americans to participate in voluntary meatless days in order to aid the war effort, and Meatless Monday was recreated in 2003 as a public health awareness program. Lowering your meat consumption does result in a myriad of health benefits—from reducing heart disease and cancer risk to promoting longer life—but the environmental benefits are also monumental.

According to estimations by the United Nations’ Food and Architecture Organization, the meat industry generates nearly one-fifth of the man-made greenhouse gas emissions that are resulting in the rapid climate change—that is more than transportation as a whole; much more. Water usage and fossil fuel dependence are also closely related to the consumption of meat. Meatless Monday reports that an estimated 1,800 to 2,500 gallons of water go into a single pound of beef, while vegetables and grains require much less water. Every calorie of feed lot beef requires an average of 40 calories of fossil fuel energy, thus trimming meat consumption is an easy way to lower the demand of fossil fuel.

Read more about Meatless Monday and find seasonal, meatless recipes here.