SAY YES TO MEATLESS MONDAYS
By VICTORIA DE LA CRUZ
Staff Writer
Meatless Monday is an international campaign that encourages people not to eat meat on Mondays in order to improve their health and help the planet. Thousands of people around the world have joined Meatless Monday since 2003 and currently all public schools in Los Angeles and the city of Sao Paulo, Brazil adhere to the campaign.
In addition, personalities like Paul McCartney, Al Gore and Gwyneth Paltrow have publicly shown support for this initiative. Meatless Monday is a nonprofit campaign in which anyone can participate: one just has to remove all the meat out of their plate one day a week. “I became vegan last year and it was life changing,” said Emilia Lujan, graduate student.
“I highly recommend my fellow Lynn students to start from somewhere and stop eating meat for at least one day.”
There are many reasons why one should remove meat from their diet at least one day a week but the main ones are, for the planet, people, animals and one’s health. The UN, through its UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) published the report “Livestock’s Long Shadow,” which determined that 18 Lifestyle percent of all greenhouse gases worldwide come out of the livestock industry.
This exceeds even all means of transport in the world and puts the livestock as the main culprit of global warming. So in one day without meat, everyone reduces their carbon footprint by 12 percent.
“For me, it is very surprising that something as common as processing meat produces so much harm to planet Earth,” said Ryan Caporice, senior. “Water is a precious natural resource and to think we are wasting so much water because we feel the need to eat meat. It is very disappointing.”
In order to produce 2.2 pounds of meat, 33 to 44 pounds of grains are required. The real question is this: how many people could be fed if these foods were intended for humans? Every 15 seconds a child dies because of malnutrition. Eating meat is a luxury, but the problem is that people no longer see it as such.
Two pounds of meat are enough to feed only four to five people, while 33 pounds of vegetables can feed over 200 people. “I really encourage Lynn University to try and implement this initiative in their cafeteria because many lives would be saved and it would be extremely beneficial for the environment,”added Lujan.
