Meatless Monday: A Win-Win Proposition Meatless Monday was started by the U.S. government as a resource-saving measure during World Wars I and II. In 2003, it was revived by The Monday Campaigns in association with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health to reduce meat consumption by 15 percent for our personal health and the health of the planet. Implementing Meatless Monday at your school can help meet the demand for healthier meals, demonstrate the school’s commitment to sustainability, and spare animals from factory farms. In this toolkit you’ll learn why Meatless Monday is sweeping the nation, what to serve, and how to implement and market the program. The Business Case for Meatless Mondays Meet Student Demand for More Meat-Free Options and Save Money Consumers, particularly young people, are looking for more meat-free options than ever before. “According to recent USDA projections, the country will see a sharp drop in meat consumption this year. Americans are expected to eat 12 percent less meat and poultry than they ate five years ago. More people, especially those over 65 and those under 30, are eating less and less meat and searching for high protein items to replace meat.” –USA Today, March 2012 Save Money Meat prices are expected to continue rising. Reducing meat purchases by increasing meat-free fare can help save your dining operation money. Affordable favorites like three-bean chili and black bean burritos make hearty, protein-rich replacements for meat-based dishes. “[Meatless Monday] not only helps reduce cost, it helps raise awareness to what it does globally for our planet by not consuming meat, even if it is only for one day [a week].” —Sadie Roy, Food Service Director of Simpson University in Redding, Calif. For Student Health, Sustainability, and Animal Welfare Student Health Diets rich in vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes, and nuts are consistently linked to lower obesity rates, blood cholesterol levels, and blood pressure. As a recent Harvard study concluded, “red meat consumption is associated with an increased risk of total, cardiovascular, and cancer mortality” due to meat’s often high fat and cholesterol content. Researchers found that those who replaced meat with plant-based proteins decreased their chance of mortality up to 11 percent. “In recent decades our meat consumption has increased dramatically— and along with it, our waistlines, blood pressure, and cholesterol. Going meat-free one day each week may reduce saturated fat intake and thus lower the risk of these chronic diseases. Schools should be a part of the solution and not the problem.” —Miguel Villarreal, director of child nutrition services for Novato Unified School District Sustainability Animal agriculture has been implicated by the United Nations as one of the top contributors to global environmental problems, due to its vast use of water, land, and fossil fuels and high carbon dioxide and methane emissions. Prominent environmental organizations like the Sierra Club, Environmental Defense Fund, and Natural Resources Defense Council advocate for reduced meat consumption. According to Environmental Defense Fund, “If every American skipped one meal of chicken per week and substituted vegetables and grains…the carbon dioxide savings would be the same as taking more than half a million cars off of U.S. roads.” “If Americans reduced meat consumption by just 20 percent, it would be as though we all switched from a sedan to a hybrid.” —The Sierra Club Animal Welfare The majority of the meat, milk, and eggs produced in the U.S. come from animals intensively confined in in factory farms, their lives bearing no resemblance to the way most of us envision farm life. By increasing and highlighting meat-free options even just one day a week, your schools can help spare animals from factory farms. How to Implement Meatless Monday Create Delicious Meat-Free Fare • Make meat-free versions of classic, popular dishes, like three bean chili, veggie burgers, tofu stir-fry, black bean burritos, and vegetable lasagna. o Email us your address and we’ll send you a free copy of Vegan in Volume, which contains over 125 bulk quantity vegan recipes, made for cafeterias and created by a registered dietitian. o Download VegAdvantage’s 106 Recipes for Vegan Dining Options. • Go international: Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Mexican, Thai, and Italian foods are often meat- free, or can easily be made meat-free. • Mix up the menu with meat-free alternatives to popular meat entrees, including veggie hot dogs and meat-free chicken nuggets, patties, and meatballs. Some of the most popular are Tofurky, Gardein, and Beyond Meat. Get the recipe for this twenty-minute chili at humanesociety.org/recipes. Implementation: Do What Works for You Meatless Monday isn’t a one-size-fits-all program: Because every school is unique, with its own demographic, cafeteria, geography, and traditions, it’s important to implement a Meatless Monday program that will work for your district and students. Many schools participate in Meatless Monday by making all their options meat-free on Mondays, but the program is flexible, and it’s important to start in a way that will work best for your school. Try simply highlighting the vegetarian options at your retail and àla carte stations (more information about this is in the “Promotion” section of this toolkit), or adding new meat-free options on Mondays, for example. Vegetarian or Vegan? While “meat-free” and “meatless” suggest vegetarian, we recommend entirely plant-based dishes for several reasons: 1. Everyone can eat vegan food! If food is vegetarian but contains dairy or eggs, students with allergies, religious adherences, or other dietary restrictions won’t be able to participate in the program. 2. Eggs and milk products are often high in fat and cholesterol, and removing them can make your meat-free options even healthier. The "Meatless Monday" lunch menu at the Academy of Global Citizenship in Chicago includes minestrone soup, veggie wrap, garden salad, steamed barley, and fresh fruit. | Photo by J. Geil Marketing Meatless Monday A student at the Academy of Global Citizenship in Chicago enjoys a Meatless Monday lunch. | Photo by J. Geil There are endless options for promoting Meatless Monday. Here are a few ideas to get you started: • Send a news release, like this one, to the local newspaper. We can work with your team to develop and distribute one. • Use the Meatless Monday posters and logos to raise awareness in cafeterias. Put up point-of- sale signs promoting Meatless Monday, add logos to the menus, and display posters in the cafeteria. • Social media: Use your school’s social networks (Twitter, Facebook) to post weekly or regular reminders about Meatless Monday. Check out these examples for ideas. • Put information about Meatless Monday on the child nutrition services website, using our sample web text. • Send a memo to parents and faculty about the program to help explain the reasons you’re • Participating, using our samples. • Promote the program to faculty and staff as an effort to enhance adult health and nutrition and to encourage them to model healthier habits to students. Contact us for copies of the Guide to Meat Free Meals to place in the teacher’s lounge and other common areas for school staff. • Host a Meatless Monday kickoff event. Check out these ideas, and this sample invitation. Sample letter to parents [School Logo] [Date] Dear Parents: It’s with great excitement that I announce that [name of school] will be taking part in a new program to improve student health and environmental sustainability. This important campaign, called Meatless Monday, will begin on [when]. I want to take this opportunity to tell you more about Meatless Monday, so you can talk to your child about it and hopefully embrace this important concept at home. You will also find an attached guide with links to multiple resources you might find helpful, as well as an invitation to a launch event. The mission of our Meatless Monday program is to promote healthier, more sustainable, and compassionate choices by eating meat-free foods just one day a week. It’s one of the easiest and more effective ways of getting people, especially children, interested in the numerous benefits associated with eating healthy meat-free meals. It’s our goal that our students and larger community understand the great impact they can have by making one small change, one day a week. Meatless Monday was started by the U.S. government as a resource-saving measure during World Wars I and II. In 2003, it was revived by The Monday Campaigns in association with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health to reduce meat consumption by 15 percent for our personal health and the health of the planet. Schools, universities, hospitals, and restaurants across the country are getting on board. We are proud to become part of this growing list. It will come as no surprise to most of you that our nation is facing a rash of public health issues— many of them largely preventable through lifestyle changes. One of the most pressing is the childhood obesity epidemic. According to the American Heart Association, one in three children, ages 2-19, are overweight or obese, and one in six children, ages 2-19, are obese. One of the leading causes of obesity is an unhealthy diet high in cholesterol and saturated fats. Obesity leads to other serious health problems including heart disease and diabetes, and obese children typically become obese adults. Scientific studies show that reducing meat (which can be high in both cholesterol and saturated fats) in your diet and eating more fruits and vegetables is better for your health and a key way of fighting obesity and preventing heart disease and cancer.