Meatless Mondays in Baltimore

Cafeterias throughout the Baltimore school district have adopted "Meatless Mondays," reports CNSNews.com, making the city's 80,000 public school students the first in the nation to forgo chicken, beef and pork at school once a week.

Mellissa Mahoney, a chef and dietitian with the school district, told CNS News that the idea started as part of a themed-approach to lunch planning, but evolved after representatives from the Meatless Monday movement approached her and other administrators involved in lunch planning for the district.

Meatless Monday is a national and international non-profit that aims to reduce meat consumption worldwide by 15 percent. The organization's Web site claims that going meatless just once a week could not only reduce the risk of developing of cancer, heart disease, diabetes and obesity, but also reduce greenhouse gases and preserve natural resources such as fresh water and fossil fuel.

According to a 2008 New York Times article, global demand for meat has swelled in recent years, and so has the impact of the industry on the environment.

"Meat factories consume enormous amounts of energy, pollute water supplies, generate significant greenhouse gases and require ever-increasing amounts of corn, soy and other grains, a dependency that has led to the destruction of vast swaths of the world's tropical rain forests," writes Mark Bittman.

Americans are by far the most avid meat eaters, consuming roughly twice the global average of meat every day. The Times article says that if Americans were to reduce that consumption by about 20 percent, it would be as if each of us had traded in our gas-guzzling sedan for an energy-efficient Prius. Wow! Now that would make an impact.

Supporters of Meatless Monday include former Beatle Paul McCartney and animal rights groups, including People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). Of course, not everyone is happy to hear that school kids are being deprived of meat once a week.

Patrick Boyle, president and CEO of the American Meat Institute, sent a letter to the CEO of the Baltimore City Schools, urging him to drop the program. "I was disturbed to read about your school system’s decision to bow to an animal rights organization in holding 'Meat Free Mondays,'" Boyle wrote. "This initiative is sponsored by the Grace Spira Project at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. The name Spira refers to Henry Spira, who is widely regarded as one of the most extreme animal rights activists of the 20th century."

Well, you can't please everyone.

Photo courtesy of Robert Brook via Flickr.