PAWs organizes 'Meatless Mondays'

Since the start of spring semester, 153 students have signed the online pledge to abstain from meat once a week, Palmer said. As the four-month stretch of meat-free Mondays draws to a close, participants look forward to their last Meatless Monday on May 19. PAWS will be hosting a celebration featuring “delicious vegan food,” Palmer said.

The project takes a less extreme tactic than in some of PAWS’ other events.

In the past, demonstrators have stripped and smeared themselves with stage blood to protest factory farming, and likened the meat industry to genocide.

The Meatless Mondays Campaign, started in association with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, is a national program that aims to help Americans prevent heart disease, stroke, diabetes and cancer — four of the leading causes of death in the United States — according to meatlessmonday.com.

Palmer, a vegan, said she gave up meat after reading Peter Singer’s “Animal Liberation” in her junior year of high school.

“My main reason is animal rights,” she said, explaining “animals shouldn’t need to suffer just for human consumption.”

But Palmer’s motivation for not eating meat goes beyond compassion. She noted that eating meat contributes significantly to global warming.

“Global greenhouse gas emissions are greater for the livestock sector than for the entire transportation sector,” she explained.

Palmer said she has tried to convince friends to quit eating meat altogether in the past, but while some are open to such a drastic change, others refuse to consider it.

“Eating meat is really strongly ingrained in our culture,” Palmer explained. “There are people who are really opposed to [vegetarianism], basically for no good reason.”

Palmer and PAWS have their work cut out for them.

“Humans are made to eat meat,” Tom Blair ’10 said, adding that if someone asked him to skip meat once a week, he “would not be very happy.”

Get the best of the ‘Prince’ delivered straight to your inbox. Subscribe now »

Liz Dengel ’10, who has been a vegetarian since the age of 7, said she likes the idea of Meatless Mondays because “it makes people aware of their dietary choices. It opens up a dialogue about what the impacts of those choices might be.”

“The key to changing American eating habits is moderation,” she added. “It’s been my experience that aggressive campaigns to change people’s eating habits result in more resistance.”

Dengel also noted that it might not be the best choice for students to overhaul their diets while still in college.

“There’s a time and a place for major changes in one’s eating habits, and I don’t think a dining plan is conducive to that change,” Dengel explained.

“I tried to go vegan for Lent, and it was sort of a disaster,” she added.

Palmer has mixed feelings about the University’s vegetarian options.

“It’s getting better, but there’s still a lot of room for improvement,” she said.

Palmer mentioned the free-range chicken served in dining halls as a step in the right direction, but added that the University’s vegetarian cuisine does not measure up to the food at some other colleges, like Duke.

PAWS plans to release a brochure on May 7 that will rate the vegetarian and vegan food options at each of the ten eating clubs.

The organization is also planning to continue Meatless Mondays next semester, “hopefully with more outreach at the beginning,” Palmer said.