Top 5 Reasons to Go Meat-Free on Mondays in 2012

 

Meat-free eating went mainstream in 2011. Whether it was former President Bill Clinton announcing his plant-based diet or Ellen DeGeneres launching an online clearinghouse of vegetarian resources, veggie eating has never been more popular.

Part of this status is owed to theMeatless Mondays movement, which encourages people to eat meat-free one day a week.

Here are the top five reasons to include Meatless Mondays in your 2012 resolutions.

Five: It’s a diet that sticks

So many New Year’s resolution diets fall by the wayside come February. Lots of people eat healthy for a few weeks following the holiday overload, but then quickly resume their normal eating habits. Because eating meat-free one day a week is such an easy thing to do, it’s one New Year’s diet that you can continue all year long.

Four: Green is good

Raising, transporting, slaughtering, and processing farm animals (and growing all the feed they need) requires a lot more natural resources than creating plant-based foods. According to the Sierra Club, if Americans reduced our meat consumption by just 20 percent, it’d have the same environmental benefit as everyone switching from a standard sedan to a hybrid vehicle. 

Three: Your taste buds will thank you

Resolving to eat meat-free one day each week will introduce your taste buds to new foods. From tasty plant-based products like veggie dogs and black bean burgers to ethnic foods like Thai tofu curry and the wide variety of meat-free dishes offered at Indian, Ethiopian, and Japanese restaurants, you’ll discover a whole new world of delicious food out there just waiting to be enjoyed.

Two: Your body will thank you

Meat is often heavy in cholesterol and saturated fats, whereas vegetarian foods tend not to be. Compare the protein content on a package of veggie dogs and a package of hot dogs, and you’ll see that plant-based products usually have the same—or even more—protein than their animal-based counterparts. You can get all the good stuff, without as much of the bad stuff. That makes it easier to drop some inches from your waistline and reduce your risk of heart attacks, strokes, diabetes, and other serious health problems.  

One: Animals will thank you

More than one million animals are slaughtered each hour in the United States, and concern over how the vast majority of them are mistreated on factory farms has reached new heights. From chickens and pigs being crammed into tiny cages to animals being pumped full of antibiotics and hormones to make them grow unnaturally quickly, there’s widespread animal cruelty in industrial agribusiness.

If each American abstained from meat just on Mondays, roughly 1.4 billion animals could be spared factory farming each year. That’s a lot less suffering.

Sign up now to get a free weekly meat-free recipe to help you keep your resolution. Happy new year!

 

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