Meat lobby fighting Meatless Monday

November 16th, 2009

Photo via Flickr: Steveandamron

Looks like Western Growers isn’t the only big ag group that’s miffed about sustainable farming cutting into its market share. It’s only been a month since Baltimore City Public Schools adopted Meatless Monday as part of its plan to introduce healthier eating to its largely overweight student population, but already lobbying groups for the meat industry are attempting to thwart other schools’ interest in doing the same.

From The Baltimore Sun:

The “Meatless Monday” program in Baltimore city school cafeterias has the meat industry madder than a factory-farmed hen. A spokeswoman for the American Meat Institute warned on CNN…that students aren’t getting enough protein. The Animal Agriculture Alliance urged people “shocked” by the once-weekly absence of meat on school menus to write schools chief Andrés Alonso “to ensure this effort does not spread.”

The cable news crazies have been jumping in on the veg-bashing effort, too, with Glenn Beck going all Nathan Hale about steak and Lou Dobbs proclaiming Meatless Mondays in schools “a political storm in the making.”

How transparent can these lobbyists’ efforts be? Don’t these people have children? Sure, let’s just keep stuffing kids’ faces with hamburgers and chicken nuggets; one in three of them may be overweight and on the way to developing diabetes, but at least they’ll be “getting enough protein.”

Since when did vegetarian lasagna become so controversial?

Thanks to loyal reader RG for sending us the Sun article.

–Jennifer Grayson