Meat Free Mondays

Having messed around with my family’s food and drink options during Fairtrade Fortnight, I’ve decided to sneakily introduce Meat Free Mondays at a time when their defences are low.

Before I move on to that, my fair trade education went down a storm. As expected, there was outrage when one member of the family got a bar of chocolate and the rest got none. Not sure how much the message got through their own seething sense of injustice at that stage. Then the emotional pressure exerted on the most fortunate one worked and we experienced a family bonding moment as he broke the chocolate into pieces into the fondue pot and let us all dip fair trade fruit into it. Touching. Memorable. An insight into fair trade? Time will tell…

Back to Meat Free Mondays. This idea has been brewing for a while, having read about it in a magazine. My husband is back to being a full-time vegetarian; my ten year old daughter is toying with the idea; and we are definitely eating more vegetables since joining the organic veg box scheme. Even my oldest son is being pressured by his girlfriend to eat a pepper or two or try a little home-made soup – and he is the most resistant, which is ironic as I was vegetarian for the whole of my pregnancy and proved all the cynics wrong by producing a very large 9lb15oz, very healthy baby (with a strong aversion to vegetables!).

I’m not turning completely vegetarian, but why does it have to be one or the other? Can’t we have a little bit of both? All things in moderation, don’t they say? How about meat in moderation? Can I become an advocate of that? Can’t we all?

Whether our reasons are financial, environmental or for personal health, eating less meat can be beneficial. If we as a family start with Meat Free Mondays, who knows where it will take us. Maybe the narrow food choices that I put on the table come from my limited imagination and preconceived notion that all children are fussy eaters. Maybe I make them into fussy eaters. Maybe I’m about to find out.

Image via Flickr