Published on 10/01/19
Meat Free Monday returns to the Stephen Perse Foundation throughout the Spring Term
The Spring Term sees the return of Meat Free Monday to the Stephen Perse Foundation. Once every three weeks the menu on a Monday will be fully meat free, offering instead a selection of vegetarian and vegan options.
We now know how much of a real impact changing and regulating our consumption of animal products can have in protecting our planet. For example, while meat and dairy products provide just 18% of calories and 37% of protein in human diets, they use the vast majority - 83% - of farmland, and produce 60% of agriculture’s greenhouse gas emissions.
Simply one person going meat free for a single day saves the equivalent daily water usage of eight people, so imagine the impact that the whole Foundation can have!
Kevin Jackman, our Executive Chef Manager, shares his thoughts on this initiative:
"Meat Free Monday is an important initiative and one we are delighted to be bringing back. It not only educates our students on environmental and sustainability issues, but also helps to expand their ideas and thinking on nutrition and health. Meat free diets are becoming ever more popular, with 1.2 million people in the UK being vegetarians, and at least 600,000 now vegan (with almost half of these aged between 15 and 34). We therefore feel it is important to recognise this growing demand for meat free menus.
Our Meat Free Monday choices will still contain all the vital nutrients, such as protein, calcium and iron, that our students need in their daily diet. It will also allow them the opportunity to enjoy new and exciting recipes from vegetarian and vegan cuisine. As always, we will be listening to feedback in order to always evolve and improve what we are doing, to ensure that the Foundation gets the most out of this exciting initiative."
One of the key values we are focusing on across the Foundation is sustainability and thus this is an important way to put ideas into action. We encourage our students to be incredibly conscious of the responsibility they have to both their local and global environment, and the ever increasing urgency of finding ways to change our behaviours. From our younger pupils participating in Forest School activities, to the Environmental Committee which involves some of our older students, we are aware of our responsibility to be leaders in promoting sustainability in our community. As a Foundation, we are proud to educate our young people beyond just academic and exams, and thus consider this an important aspect of our approach to learning. We are also committed to following the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, as Tricia Kelleher discusses in her latest blog, and this helps us fulfil some of that commitment.
Meat Free Monday will begin on Monday 28 January.
Statistics from:
www.vegansociety.com/news/media/statistics
www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2010/jul/18/vegetarianism-save-planet-environment
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