‘Meatless Mondays’ hit first Florida school district

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Students attending Sarasota County public schools might be wondering, “Where’s the beef?” The answer won’t be found between two buns, at least, not on Mondays.Sarasota County Schools kicked off a Meatless Monday campaign this week, nixing traditional protein-packed food items for vegetarian substitutes. The program is part of “a popular international movement… to promote abstaining from meat one day a week for personal health and for the health of the planet,” reads a statement forwarded to Watchdog.org by a school district spokesman. The program will continue every Monday for the rest of the school year and vegetarian dishes will be offered alongside meats on other school days. Meatless Monday is a project of the nonprofit Monday Campaigns, an initiative associated with Johns Hopkins, Columbia and Syracuse universities. It’s taken root in other parts of the country — mostly New York City and California — and has high-profile endorsements ranging from Michelle Obama to the U.S. Humane Society to vegetarian celebrities. Ahead of the United Nations Climate Summit last month, Paul McCartney urged Climate Week protesters in song-form to take a Meat Free Monday pledge to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Sarasota is the first school district in Florida to partially ban meats from school menus, according to the Meatless Monday website. On Mondays, as many as 42,000 students eating in the county’s 52 school cafeterias will choose between hummus, vegetable subs, veggie pasta bakes, spaghetti marinara and fiesta taco salads, along with other approved items...more