Today the Student Government Association of Harlaxton College found out exactly how to cause a mass uprising of the student body. It was pretty simple — take away their meat. Meatless Mondays isn’t a new idea by any means and many schools and organizations have taken to doing this in order to improve the environment, but that doesn’t mean it will go off without a hitch everywhere.
Not eating meat for one day is supposed to improve health, reduce greenhouse gases from animal waste, and reduce the reliance on animals as a meal, but it also means one simple thing: you can’t eat meat for a whole day.
At first, the student body didn’t realize anything was amiss. No bacon at breakfast? Well, maybe the kitchen was out, and who goes to breakfast anyway? But no meat at lunch? Suddenly the world is ending.
For the vegetarians, the meal continued as normal, but for the carnivores among us, prepare for war. The Harlaxton Facebook group erupted in backlash. Comments such as: “I believe in the right to life, meat, and the pursuit of happiness,” “Battle of the Refectory 2013,” and (my personal favorite) “This just in: Cows are Super Stoked about Meatless Mondays. Chickens Concur.”
If this wasn’t enough, a petition was also posted along with arguments on why Meatless Monday should at the very least not be on Monday. Why not do it Friday when Catholics can’t eat meat anyway?
One of my professors used this as a classic example of how environmental policy and science interact. An entire class period was spent discussing the positives and negatives and whether this should be any issue in the first place. Debates aren’t always friendly, however, and the idea of forcing vegetarians to eat meat during other days of the week did come up.
Another professor took a different approach and reminded us that there are bigger news stories today like a possible breakthrough in AIDS, $85 billion in U.S. public sector cuts, police foiling a terrorist attack in Derry, and Kenyan elections marred by violence. Did this stop the debate? Of course not.
Tonight, SGA meets to discuss the policy and how it went over. There probably will be a large crowd at tonight’s meeting that directly follows the wonderful “meatless” dinner we will be eating in the refectory. This is sure to put everyone in the right frame of mind.
Our reliance on meat is now obvious, but it is more than that, it is the fact that none of us knew until we got to the meal that it was Meatless Monday. Our right in having a say in what we eat comes with the large sum we pay to attend the college; the least we could do is have some sort of meat at meals.
There are many students that have taken today in stride and have pride in the efforts to “Go Green,” but that doesn’t mean that everyone is up for the sudden switch. We will recycle, we might even conserve water, but when it comes to our meat, well, apparently we can’t give that up.
