At the end of the First World War in 1917, Herbert Hoover launched a campaign called ‘Food will Win the War.’ The campaign was focused on asking people to stop meat consumption just one day per week.
This would have direct effects on helping to relieve famine, to feed the troops and directly contribute to ending the war.
Over a century later, the argument is even more relevant. We can all make a concrete difference.
The message for Meatless Monday is simple. Skip meat once a week. Do it on Monday as it starts your week well and research shows that it improves your eating throughout the week. This leads to eating more fruits, vegetables and plant-based meals all week.
But why do it? You can pick the reason that speaks most directly to you. There are so many. Here are a few:
- For your health. Reducing meat in your diet has a direct, scientific relation to living longer. Eating less meat is great for heart health, helps to manage diabetes and helps you to lose weight. Reducing consumption of red meat will decrease your chances of having a stroke or getting cancer. For example, deli or processed meat, like hot dogs, are a Group One carcinogen, in the same category as cigarettes. Experts predict that a 10-per-cent increase in meat in your life can decrease your life expectancy by two per cent.
- For the good of animals. If the entire population of Sudbury were to adopt Meatless Monday for one year only, we would save the lives over a half-million chickens.
- To save our planet. Water, trees and land use are directly affected by eating meat. If all of Sudbury were to avoid meat just one day a week for the coming year, we are talking about 92 million bathtubs of water saved and 12,500 acres of forests preserved. By having one meatless day each week for a year, you save the equivalent amount of greenhouse gases as you do driving from Sudbury to Montreal. Close to 15 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions come from meat and dairy production.
- To save money. It is much less expensive when reducing or eliminating meat from your grocery bill. While amounts can vary, the prediction is $1,600 annual reduction per person on the grocery bill.
- To reduce world hunger. If each person in Sudbury were to have one meatless day per week for a year, more than 300,000 hungry people could be fed. Animal agriculture uses about one quarter of the world’s grain. Having meat-free days helps to lower grain prices and to lift others out of chronic malnutrition.
To put this in perspective, if all of Sudbury were to adopt a Meatless Monday one day each week for the coming year, we would all be healthier, more considerate and even more wealthy. We would be kinder to ourselves, to our planet and to animals. A small change for each of us would make a huge change in our world.
So, please consider one meatless day each week in 2023. We wish this for our city and what we wish this for each one of you and your families — health, wealth and happiness. Cheers!
Danielle Marier and Annie Thoms are lifelong friends and owners of Sudbury’s only online vegan retailer, AButcher.ca.
