Veganuary versus Meat Free Mondays
After years of bemoaning children’s lack of interest in politics, the age of pupil activism has returned with a vengeance – especially in relation to diet, climate change and the environment. Recently, I had a highly articulate Stoke College pupil protest that the School served too much meat and dairy and challenge us to impose Veganuary.
In fact, the College has been doing Meat Free Mondays since long before I first heard of Veganuary. (The McCartneys kicked off the Meat Free Monday campaign back in 2009.) From a canteen and school-wide policy perspective, it is more manageable, defensible and affordable than Veganuary.
And as someone who struggles with any protracted period of self-denial (bacon, beer or box sets – you name it), a single weekly day of abstinence is a more realistic horizon. Most children hardly notice it. Moreover, the net annual effect of a Meat Free Monday policy from a School perspective is much greater than Veganuary – 36 schooldays (based on 16 weeks of school holiday) versus 15 schooldays (excluding weekends and assuming term starts in the second week of January).
A school like ours – deep in the Suffolk countryside, serving the children of many local farming families – can’t happily ditch dairy and meat for a whole month. And whether the meat-free option is actually healthier is an interesting question in itself. In theory, it ought to be, but our children’s preference on Meat Free Mondays is for macaroni cheese and baked beans: the vegan hipster’s pulses and peppers braised in olive oil, while not admittedly on the menu, don’t seem tickle the tastebuds of either toddlers or teenagers. One recalls the school-dinner martyrdom of Saint Jamie Oliver.
There are also some quite militant carnivores. Having international boarders with varying dietary requirements, I will admit to a converse protest from a meat-deprived Russian who claimed that his human rights were being infringed on Mondays.
You can never please everybody but I would recommend Meat Free Monday as a cause which is still timely and relevant, especially as the part time vegans prepare to relapse into Febarbecuary.