Baker University Director of Dining Services Tanya Sieber is making an effort to convince students to participate in Meatless Mondays to help protect the environment.
Related Story
“I have been working for the last year or more to try and make our operation here in dining services more environmentally friendly, and we’ve changed a lot of the ways that we do things,” Sieber said. “I have just been trying to strongly promote the idea of it. I think that culturally we are so accustomed to eating meat every day, every meal, some of us, and whatever that meat item is, is what’s for dinner.”
Sieber said while there are many health and financial benefits from eliminating meat just one day a week, she is focusing most on the environmental benefits.
“I don’t want to preach to people about the health impacts of eating large amounts of animal protein. I feel like that’s kind of a personal choice,” Sieber said. “But we have a responsibility to our planet and to future generations to be more mindful and conscientious of the choices we make now, and this is one really easy, small painless thing that we can do that would make a huge impact.”
According to the Meatless Monday website, The United Nations’ Food and Agricultural Organization has reported that one-fifth of man-made greenhouse gas emissions come from the meat industry.
Going meatless can help reduce the estimated 1,800 to 2,500 gallons of water that go into 16 ounces of beef to the 220 gallons of water it takes to produce soy tofu.
It can also help reduce our fossil fuel dependence.
“We’re foolish if we don’t look at ways to decrease our fossil fuel dependence,” Sieber said. “This is a no-brainer to me.”
In order to make participation easier for students, changes have been made to the way food is served on Mondays.
“What we do is we rearrange the serving line to put the meat at the end to encourage the students to take the vegetables and stuff and not the meat,” Kellie Phillips, lead steward and concessions coordinator, said.
Although Sieber hasn’t seen the cooperation she would like to see, Phillips has noticed some students participating.
“When I ask (students) if they want the meat, they say that they’re trying out the meatless Monday,” Phillips said.
To further her meatless Monday campaign, Sieber wants to eventually take meat off the Monday menu completely.
However, she is hopeful that this movement is something students will become passionate about and take charge of.
“I think that for this movement to be student-fed and student-driven, it will be much more effective than it being Tanya Sieber-led,” Sieber said. “I’m just kind of waiting for this to happen, and when this happens by student demand, by popular student demand, then we will change the menu.”
