On Monday, September 9th,  the Office of Sustainability and Civic Engagement teamed up to table in the Piazza for Meatless Monday! Students were able to sign a digital pledge to commit to not eating meat on Mondays, and in exchange were offered reusable metal straws. Along with this environmentally-conscious pledge, students could grab vegetarian and vegan recipe samples to inspire Meatless Monday cooking, as well as at-home gardening.

 

Eating meatless just once a week can have an effective impact on your carbon footprint. Skipping out on a quarter-pounder burger can save 425 gallons of water, and 6.7 driven miles-worth of carbon dioxide emissions each week (that’s 348 miles driven per year)!

 

Maintaining a plant-based diet does not have to be radical, limiting, inaccessible, or compromising if it is well-planned. For example, companies are creating plant-based products such as Beyond Meat’s Beyond Burger, and various fast food restaurants are taking their own spin on the impossible burger, switching to a meatless diet may be more attainable than we think. With this in mind, people can and will make a bigger impact on the environment if everyone makes the attempt to reduce their meat consumption.

 

For those with meat-heavy diets, we encourage you to try eating meatless on Mondays, and hopefully throughout the rest of the week! Click here to take our Meatless Monday Pledge or check out MeatlessMondayOrange!

 

Did you know?

-A quarter pound of beef uses enough water to fill 10 bathtubs

-More greenhouse gas emissions come from global livestock production than global transportation

–Cattle ranching in the Amazon Basin has increased from 5 million cows in the 1960s to approximately 70-80 million today, making cattle ranching the largest driver of deforestation in Amazonian countries

-75% of the Earth’s agricultural land is dedicated to livestock production

 

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