Source: www2.macleans.ca
GHENT, BELGIUM, March 30, 2010: Last May the townsfolk of Ghent, a Flemish burg of some 250,000, gathered outside a centuries-old slaughterhouse in the town’s historic core to sample soy fritters and pick up a map of local vegetarian eateries. This was Ghent’s inaugural “Donderdag Veggiedag” –Thursday Veggieday, literally–a weekly holiday from the evils of beef, fish, pork and poultry introduced last year by city council, which declared that the moratorium on animal protein would be “good for the climate, your health and your taste buds.” Said a representative of the Ethical Vegetarian Alternative, Belgium’s largest vegetarian organization and a partner in the city initiative: “If everyone in Flanders does not eat meat one day a week, we will save as much CO2 in a year as taking half a million cars off the road.”
Though meatlessness in Ghent each Thursday is encouraged rather than required, the policy has made vegetarianism pervasive: 95 per cent of the city’s children at 35 local schools, as well as the city’s elected councillors and civil servants, now submit to the Veggiedag menu each week.
Donderdag Veggiedag was a global first, putting medieval Ghent on the cutting edge of efforts to combat climate change by changing the way people eat. But elsewhere, too, the moderate meat movement is gaining ground. A Meatless Mondays organization founded in the U.S. has now opened branches in Holland, Finland, Canada, Taiwan and Australia. Following Ghent’s lead, cities like Sao Paulo and Tel Aviv have created city-wide schemes. Last year, Baltimore became the first city in North America to mandate Meatless Mondays in its school cafeterias, for environmental as well as health reasons. A similar proposal has just been made for New York City schools. Read more at source.