Meat Industry in a Tizzy Over Meatless Mondays Trend

"Meatless Mondays," a campaign encouraging people to eliminate meat from their diets one day a week, is gaining tremendous ground. While the movement was initially backed by environmentalists, public health advocates, and animal rights activists, now more mainstream groups are joining the fray. Baltimore City Public Schools instituted the practice last October. San Francisco's Board of Directors recently encouraged restaurants and other institutions to adopt the idea. And, now, improbably, meat-loving chef Mario Batali joined the campaign by providing two vegetarian entrees in all of his 14 restaurants every Monday.

Predictably, the industrial meat industry is reacting with alarm at the growing enthusiasm for the practice. The Washington Post's Jane Black reports that industry lobbyists have been sending around "cease and desist" letters to institutions that are implementing Meatless Mondays, including Baltimore City Schools and Healthcare Without Harm, a non-profit that urges hospitals to serve less meat.

Can't the meat industry for once just sit back and let a few people eat a few vegetables? Do they have to keep pushing their products on little kids and sick people?

The ridiculous thing is that these meat giants are in no danger of taking some massive hit from the trend, which is getting more popular but is still relatively limited. The American public is, in general, not exactly clamoring to reduce its meat intake. For proof, just look at KFC's new Double Down sandwich, which replaces sandwich bread with pieces of fried chicken and has been so successful that KFC just extended its run. And Taco Bell just announced its "$2 Meal Deals," where folks can purchase a taco or burrito, soda, and bag of Doritos for a mere two bucks. These examples show Americans' addiction to fast food, but they also display peoples' penchant for meat.

The industry maintains that its has a logical position in the public's interest, a position backed by science. Lobbyists state that meat is inherently beneficial because it's a complete protein, and therefore unhealthful to exclude it from one's diet. Even, apparently, for one day in the week. It is arguments like this that the industry is bringing to the advisory committee on the USDA's food pyramid, which is proposing new guidelines.

Corporations just won't live and let live when it comes to food choices. As Tony Geraci, the director of food service for Baltimore City Public Schools, said to Black, "When you start talking about this kind of stuff at institutions, it sends a panic through the industry."

Photo: Thomas R. Stegelmann via Flickr