Would you be willing to give up meat for just one day a week, if you knew that it was making a difference to the environment, as well as your health? This is the idea behind Meat Free Mondays, a global campaign which has made its way to South Africa, and which has already been taken up by Animal Rights Africa; Beauty Without Cruelty; the Animal Anti-Cruelty League; the SA Vegan Society; Fry’s Vegetarian Foods; The Parlotones; 5FM’s Grant Nash; and many other ordinary South Africans.
The campaign aims to “reduce carbon emissions in order to slow the rate of climate change; protect the environment; improve your health; and express compassion for the rights and needs of animals.”
As can be expected with a campaign of this nature, regarding just how much of a difference going without meat for just one day can make – especially when there must be a carbon footprint involved in the production and consumption of vegetarian food, too. However, Meat Free Mondays does, at the very least, seem like a step in the right direction healthwise, and if we can reduce the inhumane practices associated with raising and killing livestock, so much the better. I’ll leave the ‘environmental impact’ discussions to the experts!
In a society that has certainly jumped on the going green’ bandwagon, Meat Free Mondays presents itself as a campaign with which companies and brands can align themselves to appeal to consumers’ needs, while at the same time working to make a real difference, rather than simply ‘greenwashing’ to keep up with the trend.
