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Meatless Monday

Meatless Monday is a public health awareness campaign promoting meatless, low-fat meals once a week as part of a goal to reduce the saturated fat in American diets by 15% by the year 2010.^[1]

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Background

Meatless Monday is coordinated by the Meatless Monday Campaign, Inc., a non-profit working in conjunction with the Center for a Livable Future at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health and is supported by 27 other schools of public health throughout the U.S. The program follows nutrition guidelines of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, the United States Department of Agriculture, and the American Heart Association.

Diets high in saturated fat, found mainly in meat and high-fat dairy products, increase the risk of heart disease, diabetes, and stroke, and may increase the risk of certain types of cancer.^[2] As these are so-called "lifestyle diseases," deaths are often preventable by making changes in diet or activity.^[3]

Meatless Monday believes the best way to reduce the intake of saturated fat is to cut back on meat intake. Going one day a week without eating meat reduces fat intake roughly 15%. Research has shown that adding a time factor to a campaign when to start eating healthy helps people to change their behavior.^{[citation needed]} Monday is already selected by public health advocates as a day to focus on personal health improvement.

History

During World War I, the United States Food and Drug Administration urged families to observe "Meatless Monday", "Wheatless Wednesday", and other measures to help the war effort. Conserving food would both support U.S. troops as well as feed starving populations in Europe where food production and distribution had been disrupted by war. Herbert Hoover was the head of the Food Administration as well as the American Relief Association during Woodrow Wilson's administration, and played a key role implementing the campaign, which was one of Hoover’s many attempts to encourage volunteerism and sacrifice among Americans during the war effort.

The campaign came back into play with the onset of World War II, calling upon women at the home front to play a role in supporting the war effort. During this time meat was being rationed, along with other commodities like sugar and gasoline.