LAUSD Adopts Meatless Monday
The school district serves more than 650,000 meals daily to students in grades kindergarten through twelve and has the largest school breakfast program in the United States.
Implementing a mandatory vegetarian menu on Mondays in the school district follows the city council's resolution, passed last November, promoting the day-long meat-free diet.
The obesity and overweight rate in the Los Angeles is 42 percent. A meatless diet, studies have shown, yield lower cholesterol levels and a lower body mass index, or BMI.
The U.S. has the highest per capita of meat consumption in the world, but this number is slowly decreasing. Meat is costly to produce and increases the carbon dioxide levels in our atmosphere, according to a United Nations report.
Meatless Monday was started by the U.S. government during World War I to conserve resources, according to the Meatless Monday campaign's website. The respite from meat consumption has been adopted by many organizations, schools, and Universities.
Many celebrities including President Bill Clinton, Oprah Winfrey, Ellen DeGeneres, Mike Tyson and Rev. Al Sharpton have endorsed the movement.
