It’s difficult to believe that Meat Free Monday turned 10 this month. The campaign has achieved so much in the past decade, and yet – with so much work still to do to – it feels like we’re only just getting started.
As well as the millions of MFMers reducing their meat consumption around the world every Monday and beyond, we have garnered a fair few famous friends in our first 3,652 days. Many of them took to social media to celebrate the anniversary and show their love, using the new hashtag #MFMCountMeIn.
The goal is to get even more people educated about the environmental dangers of livestock farming, interested in changing their diets to help, and excited and delighted about eating more plant-based food. And with some of the biggest stars on the planet bigging us up, we’re hoping for a flood of new recruits.
Lord of the Rings actor Orlando Bloom said: “Happy birthday Meat Free Monday! I think generations to come are going to look at us and go, ‘Can you believe they used to eat meat? That’s crazy.’ Happy birthday, you meat free lovers.”
His fiancee, Katy Perry, shared a photo of herself dressed up as a burger, alongside Taylor Swift. She captioned it: “This meal is BEEF-free” – a reference to the two singers’ feud, before they buried the hatchet – and added the #MeatFreeMonday hashtag.
Kate Moss kept it stylishly succinct: “Happy 10th anniversary Meat Free Monday.” And fellow model Twiggy offered her own congratulations, adding: “Keep your Mondays full of veggies and help keep our planet safe.”
The band Coldplay also showed their support, with lead singer Chris Martin saying MFM was “an amazing idea. The fact that we’re encouraged to think about where our meat comes from and how much we consume can only be a good thing for us, for animals and the planet.” Vegan singer songwriter Billie Eilish recommended supporting the campaign as a way to “help the world”.
And Meat Free Monday’s founders, Paul, Mary and Stella McCartney, paid tribute too – not only to a campaign that is changing minds, lives and the world, but to the people who have made it such a success: MFMers like you.
“The support we’ve had from all these lovely people – you and all the other lovely people – has been great,” Paul said. “It’s a simple idea that people have caught onto. They love it, we love it, the planet loves it, everybody loves it, the animals love it. It’s Meat Free Monday – happy 10 years!”
Watch the #MFMCountMeIn video