‘Meat Free Monday’ not literally meatless

The university introduced ‘Meat Free Monday’ as a weekly event. But don’t worry – you can still have a croquette for lunch on Mondays if you prefer. However, the university’s aim is to make students aware of alternatives to meat once every week.

The key word here is ‘encouragement’. Sustainability project manager Eva Rood explains: “The idea behind Meat Free Monday is actually to inform people about the negative effects of cattle breeding and alternatives to eating meat.” The campaign is intended to encourage students and staff to eat less meat on Mondays, although croquettes will still be on sale for the time being. “We aren’t actually going to stop people eating meat,” Eva adds. “That would cause a lot of bad feelings, believe me! And anyway, if you want to eat a croquette now and again, it’s your own responsibility.”

However, it still isn’t quite clear what exactly we can expect on Mondays. Although it will be up to the caterers themselves to decide how they will deal with Meat Free Monday, Rood says that everyone is willing to join in on the campaign. “But I really have no idea how they’re going to do that either,” she says. “Maybe with posters or extra vegetarian meals or discount. I do know that the Erasmus Paviljoen will be including an extra vegetarian special on the menu.”

The campaign was launched last week with the Dutch premiere of Cowspiracy, a documentary on the impact of the meat industry on the environment. TF