Forget Fridays — Meatless Monday is the Best Day of the Week!

COK staff and Los Angeles City Council Members after passage of LA’s Meatless Monday resolution.

Over 50 percent of Americans are familiar with the Meatless Monday campaign, and one in five already participate. From coast to coast, Compassion Over Killing is working closely with city councils and other institutions to help implement this community effort to build a kinder, cleaner, and healthier world.

Meatless Mondays in the Nation’s Capital

In June 2010, COK worked with DC councilmember Yvette Alexander to introduce the “DC Meat-Free Mondays” Ceremonial Resolution. The resolution promotes the benefits of adding more fruits and vegetables to our diets and encourages residents to “abstain from animal products” on Mondays.

Shortly after the DC government passed the resolution, even local soup kitchen, Miriam’s Kitchen, started dishing out meat-free meals on Fridays!

Meatless Mondays in the City of Angels

In November of 2012, Compassion Over Killing worked closely with council members in Los Angeles, Calif. to develop another Meatless Mondays resolution encouraging residents to choose meat-free foods at least once a week as a way to help protect their health, the environment, and animals. This makes Los Angeles the third—and the largest—major city to adopt this healthy and humane resolution.

While LA’s Meatless Monday resolution was making the rounds in local and national news raising awareness about the many benefits of choosing vegetarian foods, the Los Angeles Unified School District was developing an implementation plan. The LA Unified School District, which is the nation’s second largest school system, showed its support by launching a 100% Meatless Monday menu in all of its cafeterias! An estimated 650,000 meat-free meals will now be served to students throughout the City of Angels on the first day of each week.

Check out our gallery of Angelenos enthusiastically voicing their support for Meatless Mondays.

Meatless Mondays Across the Nation

• Cities from Takoma Park, Md. and Santa Cruz, Calif. to Aspen, Colo. and Boone, NC have implemented Meatless Mondays either through resolutions or by encouraging businesses to offer meatless menus. In April 2010, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors also passed a Meatless Monday resolution to “encourage restaurants, schools, and grocery stores to offer plant-based options.”
• Baltimore City Schools have implemented Meatless Mondays, serving only vegetarian meals to 80,000 young people every week.
• Chef Mario Batali offers Meatless Monday recipes at all 14 of his restaurants.

A Win for the Animals

Simply by choosing vegetarian foods just one day a week, an individual can:

• Do more for the planet than by switching to a totally local diet
• Reduce his or her carbon footprint by over 8 lbs per day, as much as not driving for two days
• Save 1/2 a gallon of gasoline per day
• Reduce his or her saturated fat intake by 15% (per meatless meal)
• Reduce his or her risk of breast, colon, prostate, kidney, and pancreatic cancer
• Decrease his or her risk of heart disease by up to 19% (per meatless meal)
• Save 28 land animals and 175 aquatic animals per year

Meatless Mondays in Your City

Thankfully, Meatless Mondays is a campaign in which anyone can participate. One individual acting alone can approach a local city council member with our sample resolution, set up a meeting with a school cafeteria, ask a restaurant to implement more humane options, or join our next efforts to encourage schools, restaurants, and cities to support this campaign. Sign up for our online newsletter to stay in touch!