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New week, new health habit? Do you find yourself making promises to yourself on Sunday night about certain health habits you need to improve? Do you vow to cut out sugar/coffee/gluten? Do you pre-pack your gym bag, swearing to yourself that this week, you WILL become a Body Pump regular? Why set yourself up for failure! Join Meatless Mondays, a non-profit movement that seeks to make us vegetarians one day a week. Started in 2003, there are now Meatless Mondays campaigns in over 21 countries worldwide and counting. It has spread to restaurants and famous chefs such as Mario Batali are committing to the movement.
Meatless Mondays is a wonderful idea because it is so simple and reasonable. It’s not asking you to give up meat forever or become a vegan or anything extreme. Everyone can avoid meat just one day a week. Cutting back on meat is green for so many reasons, some of which are:
- reduce your saturated fat intake – eating meat 1 day less eliminates 15% of saturated fats from your diet
- lower carbon emissions – the meat industry is one of the biggest polluters worldwide
- give your body, especially your liver, a break – it costs your body a great deal of energy and resources to digest meat compared to say, vegetables
- lower your toxins intake – animals are highest on the food chains which means they store the most environmental toxins in their flesh
- decrease your risk of heart diseases, diabetes, obesity, cancer – all are linked to excessive meat consumption