Vegetarians Have Their Day
Vegetarians have long put up with scathing and sarcastic comments from carnivores criticizing their dietary preferences. Nowadays, though, restricted meat consumption has become a more universal habit due to concerns about "the cost to human health and the environment of intensive meat and dairy farming." In Ghent, a small town in Belgium, one day each week has been designated "vegetarian" by local burghers (councilors) who endorse U.N. views that meat production is responsible for nearly one-fifth of greenhouse gasses.
City officials hope that reducing consumption will reduce pollution while improving health and so they are encouraging people to make Thursdays in the city meat- and fish-free. According to The Guardian, Labour Councillor Tom Balthazar said, "We just want to be a city that promotes sustainable and healthy living." The Daily Telegraph described the effort as "an attempt to fight climate change."
Addressing issues such
as obesity, global warming, cruelty to animals and misconceptions about
vegetarianism simultaneously may seem a massive challenge but there was
apparently a lengthy line of people signing up to collect their whole food
goodie bag and commit to supporting the program on the night before it
started.
On the first day "Donderdag - Veggie Dag" came into effect, every restaurant in the city guaranteed a vegetarian dish on the menu while some promised to make every Thursday entirely vegetarian. Schools plan to follow suit come September with Thursday's default lunch being vegetarian. Hospitals are reportedly also considering participation.
Tobias Leenaert, director of the local branch of Flanders' Ethical Vegetarian Association (EVA), has proclaimed the uniqueness of the exercise and said, "We hope that the university, other institutions, enterprises and other towns will jump on the train."
Wim Coenen, a vegan who imports vegetarian pet food from Italy, added that the intention is not to force people into vegetarianism but to reduce carbon and meat consumption.
Recipes, demonstrations and advice supplemented the restaurants' efforts so that people could easily participate at home. Enquiries about possible participation have reportedly also come in from other towns in Belgium as well as the Netherlands and Canada.
Discussion Question: Is information about the value of reducing meat consumption having any effect on American consumers? Do you see this changing in the foreseeable future? Would a vegetarian day ever work in the U.S.?