Since the beginning of 2011, David and I have been endeavoring to eat meat one less day a week. We heard about the Meatless Monday movement and were challenged to participate. Now we are not always successful at going meatless on Mondays, but we have been faithful to at least one day a week. I think this has been helped by the fact that we have several vegetarian friends and some with dietary restrictions and that we entertain in our home on an almost weekly basis.
The “Meatless Monday” concept is not a new one. Three United States presidents appealed to the nation to voluntarily submit to one meatless day a week during the World Wars. However, the recent media attention about the initiative came after Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health’s Center for a Livable Future endorsed this movement as socially responsible and good for your health.
Here is a short list of some of the meatless meals we have tried over the past year:
grilled cheese and tomato soup
spanakopita
cream of asparagus soup and oatmeal molasses bread
tofu loaf and sweet potato
cheeseburger casserole with meat substitute instead of ground beef
homemade macaroni and cheese with peas
sweet and sour lentil balls and quinoa
veggie lasagna
pesto linguine and salad
Julia Child’s cream of mushroom soup with sundried tomato and garlic loaf
Some of those meals were very easy to make (yes, grilled cheese counts!), while others were very labour intensive (good ol’ Julie Child), and some were just ordered at restaurants. Sometimes we took a traditionally meaty dish and made it without the meat or used a substitute.
All in all, it hasn’t been as difficult as we thought. We’ve enjoyed the challenge of finding new meatless recipes and reinventing our favourites without the meat. Want to make a small change in 2012 that has social and health benefits? Why not try going meatless every Monday this year?
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