Letter to the editor: Dining Services incorporates Meatless Monday in The Marketplace

Did you know that the food you eat every day has an embodied energy, water, and carbon footprint based on the way it was produced, shipped, and prepared? USU Dining Services is working to help reduce that footprint by decreasing the amount of meat consumed on campus.

Why meat? For one, it takes approximately 1,850 gallons of water to produce one pound of beef! This compares to one pound of vegetables, which only takes 39 gallons to produce.

Because producing meat is such a carbon-intensive process, cutting out meat for just one day per week can help to reduce your personal emissions. In fact, cutting meat once per week could save the same amount of emissions as driving your car 348 miles.

A group of USU students are working to reduce carbon emissions and industrial water usage through the decreased consumption of meat. They are helping to uplift the practice of Meatless Mondays as a long-term way to help the environment.They aren’t asking people to give up meat altogether, which would probably scare most away before they even start, but rather to give meat up for one day a week.

This partnership with USU Dining Services stems from ENVS 4700: Communicating Sustainability with Dr. Roslynn McCann, where the class focus is to engage the community in more sustainable behavior through the partnership of local organizations. Ideas for developing strategies originate from our course text: Fostering Sustainable Behavior: An Introduction to Community-Based Social Marketing (Third Edition) by Doug McKenzie-Mohr, which has influenced our approach to this project.

In partnering with Alan Anderson, Director of Dining Services, the students are collaborating with their marketing team for informational graphics and presenting information on the TVs near The Hub. Alan has communicated with his chefs of menu possibilities for vegetarian and meat alternative meals, and these menu options will be presented in the Marketplace. Every contribution helps reduce carbon emissions each week, and we want to ensure students understand the sustainability aspect as well as getting rid of any misconceptions or fears of meat-alternatives.

On April 3rd Meatless Monday was kicked off with a sampling table in the Marketplace featuring meat free foods. The students also gave out stickers that stated “I Pledge to Eat Meatless on Mondays.” Now, diners at the Marketplace can participate in Meatless Mondays by simply ordering from the meat-alternative menu at Mamma Blues.

We hope to see you at the Marketplace, and we are very excited to find fun ways to try meatless recipes and share them with the students here at USU!