Student opinion divided over Meat Free Mondays

The campaign for Meat Free Mondays has been a month-long encouragement of students to remove meat from their diets for one day of the week.

The motivation behind Meat Free Mondays, which was organised in a collaborative effort between Warwick Oxfam Outreach, People and Planet, Green Party, and Animal Ethics Society, has been to educate students on the environmental impact of meat consumption.

The group’s Facebook page has attracted over 200 ‘likes’, with members regularly posting recipes and photographs of their meals.

Not everyone at Warwick was as enthusiastic as these members about giving up meat on Mondays.

The group held and filmed a flash-mob in the University library to publicise the meat-free campaign, but 20 minutes after the video appeared online two opposing Facebook pages were created: Warwick Extra-Meaty Mondays and Warwick Regular Mondays.

The Students’ Union has nevertheless supported the Meat Free Mondays campaign, launching special vegetarian sandwiches at the Bread Oven.

“Cutting down our meat consumption and making a conscious effort not to eat meat on one day a week can have a huge impact on our environment,” said Agathe Evain, publicity and communications officer for Warwick Oxfam Outreach.

“If everyone in Britain gave up eating meat on one day a week, the reduction in emission of greenhouse gases would be the equivalent of taking five million cars off the road.”

The creator of the Warwick Extra Meaty Mondays Facebook page, who wished to remain anonymous, said they “stand for the majority of human carnivores against the militant vegetarianism that is so widespread, not just on our campus but across our country.”

“We feel having a meat free Monday is both unhealthy, and fundamentally the wrong approach.”

Third-year English Literature student, David Levesley, who has been taking part in Meat Free Mondays and posting vegetarian recipes on his blog, disagrees.

“Whilst I think meat is great and deserves to be a part of the human diet, the sheer environmental waste created by meat farming is obscene,” he asserted.

“The carbon footprint of the West’s meat eating habits could do with a severe curbing. Meat Free Mondays is about taking one day a week to appreciate that meals can be complete, and in fact superior, without meat on the plate.”