‘Meatless Mondays’ to debut in dining halls

Although Dining Services has been pushing a healthy-eating initiative this semester, for two student environmental activists, these efforts just weren't enough.

On Meatless Mondays,which are set to start next semester, The Diner and the South Campus Dining Hall will advertise healthy and green living. Junior Jesse Yurow and sophomore Sarah Eisenstein, who are both environmental science and policy majors as well as members of the Student Government Association's student sustainability council, are working with Dining Services to launch the vegetarian-friendly campaign.

"The Meatless Mondays campaign is all about promoting healthy and environmentally sustainable living," Yurow said. "Most of the money that this country spends on health care goes to treat problems like heart disease and diabetes that can be warded off by healthy eating."

But carnivores have no fear — Meatless Mondays won't be as meatless as its name suggests. Dining Services will not eliminate the burgers and chicken tenders that are their best selling items on any day of the week.

"The idea of telling 20,000 people what they should eat is definitely not the right approach," Director of Dining Services Colleen Wright-Riva said. "We're in the business of offering students as many different options as possible and then letting them decide what to choose."

Instead of mandating that students with dining plans go totally meatless on the first day of the week, Wright-Riva and crew are planning on placing an emphasis on vegetarian dishes.

"This promotion might mean that the value meals on Mondays will be vegetarian, and it might include a presentation or some sort of marketing campaign to raise awareness for the cause," Wright-Riva said.

Although Dining Services already offers vegetarian options, for some students, such as sophomore criminology and criminal justice major and self-proclaimed healthy eater Kristen Cesario, the plan seems to promise fresh options in what can be a repetitive genre of food.

"I probably wouldn't care about the ad campaign, but if more vegetables and healthy dishes are made available to me, I'll be more likely to eat them," Cesario said.

Eisenstein is currently working with John Gray, Dining Services' senior executive chef, to create more appealing vegetarian options to be launched with the initiative.

"I always hear vegetarians complaining about diner food, so this will make their lives better as well as non-vegetarians who enjoy veggie-based meals every now and then," Eisenstein wrote in an e-mail.

Eisenstein hopes that more appealing vegetarian options will lure more students into going meatless.

"I believe in autonomy, but I just want people to consider the costs their meat eating has on their environment and their health," Eisenstein said. "I think many people will be supportive of this campaign whose message is moderation."

hemmati at umdbk dot com