Having started earlier this winter, Meatless Mondays are now a new tradition at Concord Academy. Once a month, the Stu-Fac prepares meals for the entire day that contain no meat at all. There are many different delicious vegetarian and vegan options served for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. These meals provide significant environmental benefits, even though Meatless Mondays are not extremely widespread yet. Many people and organizations participate in Meatless Mondays. While it is still not widely recognized, this still provides excellent environmental benefits.
One environmental benefit of Meatless Mondays lies in the amount of animals and crops saved. If everyone in the US didn’t eat meat for one day, 323 million animals would be saved. Because livestock requires a lot of food, this would save approximately 1.5 billion pounds of crops, such as corn and wheat. With a student body of four hundred, CA saves approximately 395 animals each Meatless Monday or about 4740 animals per year. By using less meat, so many animals and so much food is saved, which can help with both climate change and global famine.
Another environmental benefit lies in the gas required to produce and transport meat, livestock, and crops. If everyone in the US participated in Meatless Mondays, 70 million less gallons of gas would be used. This equals approximately 0.21 gallons of gas saved per person or approximately 95 gallons of gas for the whole CA community. Gas emissions are a serious contributor to climate change and global warming, and this reduction would create a significant positive impact. The CA community could help to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, and reduce the greenhouse effect. If Meatless Monday becomes a more widely practiced day, then gas emissions would be reduced dramatically, which experts say would help slow the course of climate change and global warming.
Overall, Meatless Mondays have a dramatic impact on both the world and CA. Meatless Mondays help us reduce both the amount of food and crops that we use and our carbon dioxide emissions. Furthermore, they introduce the CA community to healthy, delicious new vegan and vegetarian options prepared by the Stu-Fac. By participating in Meatless Monday, we can all help battle climate change and create a positive impact on the world.