5 Reasons to Try Meatless Mondays this New Year

On the fence? Here’s Some Motivation

4 min readJan 3, 2022

The Meatless Monday campaign was started in 2003 by Sid Lerner, who founded the Monday Campaigns alongside the John Hopkins Center for a Livable Future. Today it’s become a mainstay of New Year’s Resolutions and occasional diet advice. So is it just a fad? A losing battle? A planet-saving success? Here are five reasons to try Meatless Monday and stick with it!

1. It Reduces Processed Meat Intake

The consumption of processed meats is associated with a whopping 42% higher incidence of coronary heart disease and a 19% increase in diabetes. Processed meats include items such as ham, pepperoni, beef jerky, and deli meats.

Better yet, even if consumers swap processed red meats for processed plant-based mock meats, the health benefits still confer. One study by Stanford Medicine found that an average of two servings of plant-based meat lowers some cardiovascular risk factors when compared to the same amount of animal meat. People can keep the same indulgent taste and skip the cardiovascular risk factors.

Of course, there are plenty of benefits in replacing meat with less processed forms of plant protein as well. Eating legumes 3–4 times per week may lower the risk of heart disease by 10%. Legumes such as nuts may help improve concentration.

2. It Can Increase Longevity

Swapping in more plant-based protein corresponds with a longer lifespan and lesser chance of premature death.

Researchers at Harvard and Tehran University discovered in a study published by The BMJ that getting 3% more of total calories in the form of plant protein lowered people’s risk for premature death by 5%. They analyzed 32 studies on protein intake.

A similar study published by Jama International Medicine looked at survival rates for individuals who posted their diet information 16 years earlier. They found that swapping just 3% of animal meat to plant protein corresponded with a 10% reduction in premature death for both men and women.

3. It Reduces your Carbon Footprint

You can reduce your carbon footprint by 8 pounds for every Meatless Monday that you participate in. This is about the same as not driving for two days.

Animal Agriculture is responsible for at least 37% of greenhouse gas emissions. The Committee on Climate Change released a report indicating that shifting to fewer animal products can allow an individual to reduce their dietary emissions by 35%.

It will also save nearly 133 gallons of water and 24 square feet of land per meal. If you want to be environmentally conscious, meat reduction is a great place to start!

4. It May Aid Against Antibiotic Resistance

While data is lacking, as much as 70% of antibiotics imported into the United States are used in the animal agricultural industry. Antibiotics are routinely added to animal feed in order to treat and prevent infection. However, there is growing evidence that this practice is contributing to antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria that can harm humans as well as animals.

In 2017 the WHO released a set of scientific guidelines which indicate that the factory farming industry’s overuse of antibiotics is contributing to antibiotic resistance. Their aim was to preserve the effectiveness of critically important antibiotics.

While the risk of eating antibiotics in meat is low, the risk of food being contaminated with antibiotic-resistant bacteria is much higher. One report found resistant bacteria in 81% of ground turkey meat, 69% of pork chops, 55% of ground beef, and 39% of chicken breasts, wings, and thighs found in US supermarkets.

At this time, it is believed that the threat of spreading resistant bacteria from farm to consumer is low because proper cooking and handling will kill the bacteria. However, the spread of resistant bacteria such as MRSA from infected cattle to their farmers is common.

Additionally, researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health discovered evidence of a novel pathway for antibiotic-resistant bacteria. By simply driving behind a truck transporting broiler chickens, scientists were able to collect drug-resistant microbes from the air inside of their cars.

The full impact of factory farming, antibiotic usage, and the spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria is still being explored. However, some argue that scientific uncertainty is protecting the interest of factory farm companies.

“Frankly, it reminds me of the tobacco industry, the asbestos industry, and the oil industry,” James Johnson an infectious disease physician at the University of Minnesota told the Scientific American. “We have a long history of industries subverting public health.”

5. It Can Help Animals

One report investigated the impact of the Meatless Monday program implemented in K12 schools between 2012 and 2017. In that time, the equivalent of more than 10 million animals were saved. The report saw a significant accumulation of animals saved per year over half a decade.

It also found that over half a million tons of carbon dioxide were saved. Eating meatless just one time per week had a significant environmental and agricultural impact.