Exploits of a Vegan Wannabe

I received exciting news Yesterday. The Exploits recipe for Polenta Fries with Basil Sea Salt will be a featured recipe on the Meatless Mondays site this Monday. I am so incredibly happy and honored. The mission of the Meatless Mondays organization is to help people reduce meat consumption by 15% in order to improve personal health and the health of the planet. I found some information on their site today that was new to me and I could hardly believe it.  So, I am posting it here for you to see too.  We digressed a bit as a consumptive nation and are now finding ourselves again. Great for us and lets keep it moving forward.

• During World War I, the U.S. Food Administration urged families to reduce consumption of key staples to aid the war effort. “Food Will Win the War,” the government proclaimed, and “Meatless Monday” and “Wheatless Wednesday” were introduced to encourage Americans to do their part.

• Herbert Hoover, then head of the Food Administration, spearheaded implementation of the campaign. In addition to advertising, his office created and distributed recipe booklets and menus in newspapers, magazines and pamphlets.

• The effect was overwhelming. Some 10 million families, 7,000 hotels and nearly 425,000 food dealers pledged to observe national meatless days. In November 1917, New York City hotels saved some 116 tons of meat over the course of just one week. According to a 1929 Saturday Evening Post article, “Americans began to look seriously into the question of what and how much they were eating. Lots of people discovered for the first time that they could eat less and feel no worse – frequently for the better”.

• The campaign returned during World War II and beyond, when Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman used rationing to help feed war-ravaged Europe.

• In 2003 Meatless Monday was recreated as a public health awareness program in association with Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health’s Center for a Livable Future. The campaign was endorsed by over 20 schools of public health. Its goal was to help Americans reduce their risk of preventable disease by cutting back saturated fat.

To celebrate Meatless Monday’s mission please add one more meatless meal to your week.  If you already are Meatless every day, share one of your meals with a friend who is veg-curious and tell us about your recipe!  Let’s rock it out together.

Have a delicious weekend and see you again on Meatless Monday.

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