Texas Official: Meatless Monday 'Has No Place In Our Schools'

Meat advocates in Texas have been known to be hard-core ever since a group of Texas beef producers sued Oprah Winfrey for $10.3 million back in the mid-1990s. Her offense? Talking about how, thanks to the mad cow scare, she was afraid to eat beef. Winfrey won the case, but 20 years later, some Texans still aren’t down for dropping the burgers, even one day out of the week. Texas Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples has attacked Texas school districts that have embraced Meatless Monday.

“Restricting children’s meal choice to not include meat is irresponsible and has no place in our schools,” Staples wrote in a Sept. 7 op-ed in the Austin American Statesman. “This activist movement called ‘Meatless Monday’ is a carefully orchestrated campaign that seeks to eliminate meat from Americans’ diets seven days a week—starting with Mondays.”

The commissioner called out the Dripping Springs Independent School District near Austin. To promote a healthier lifestyle and environmental consciousness, the district recently adopted a vegetarian school lunch menu on Mondays. After all, going vegetarian has been proved to chop a person’s carbon footprint in half and can help combat obesity.

As a result, cafeterias in the district are serving everything from tasty black bean burritos and vegetarian chili to cheese ravioli, according to local television station CBS-DFW. Kids who want a turkey sandwich or a hamburger are still welcome to bring those food options from home.

“Are we having a war on meat in Dripping Springs? Definitely not,” John Crowley, director of childhood nutrition services for the school district, told the station. “We’re trying to think outside the box, and we serve a lot of Texas beef on our menus. We’ve had requests for more vegetarian options, and I thought, ‘Why don’t I give it a try and see how it’s received by kids?’ ”

Just like Winfrey, it sounds like district officials aren’t backing down. Wouldn’t it be ironic if Staples gets bitten by the tick that’s turning people vegetarian?

Related stories on TakePart:

• Why You Need to Give Up Meat to Have Enough to Drink

• Meat Is Murder—but It’s People Being Killed (and Not How You Think)

• Eating Less Meat Is Better for the Planet Than Ditching Your Car

Original article from TakePart