The initiative in Ghent has spread to the city’s schools now. Starting this week, 35 schools (with around 11,000 pupils) will participate. The students will be served vegetarian lunches on Thursdays, every week of the year. Now a second Belgian city, Hasselt, has decided to launch a weekly veggie day too. In support of the campaign all 40,000 families in the city will receive a free vegetarian recipe booklet through the post.
On the other side of the world the Brazilian city of São Paulo launches its weekly veggie day-campaign on October 3 and 4. The Meat Free Monday campaign will be inaugurated in the city’s Ibirapuera Park with a range of family activities and advice on cooking great veggie food on their meat-free days. The initiative is being led by the Brazilian Vegetarian Society, in partnership with organisations that include São Paulo’s Municipal Secretary of Green and Environment, Vegetarian Magazine, Greenpeace and others – a real breakthrough from a city in one of the world’s biggest meat-exporting countries.
If you’d like to see the UK government taking meat reduction more seriously start by writing to your MP.