Brazil‘s largest city, São Paulo is rolling out weekly meat free meals in the city’s schools in an initiative by Meat Free Monday’s sister organisation, Segunda Sem Carne, which is dedicated to educating people about eating in a way that is beneficial for the planet.
Segunda Sem Carne, which was set up by the Brazilian Vegetarian Society in 2009, is dedicated to educating people about the benefits of eating in a more environmentally conscious way. The State São Paulo has been serving meat-free meals twice a month since 2011, amounting to 1.8 million meat free meals served every Monday across 5,300 schools.
“Adding up the capital and state of São Paulo, a total of 67 million meat free meals were served in 2018 – an astonishing positive impact for the environment and for people’s health,” said Mônica Buava, national coordinator of Segunda Sem Carne.
With the increased frequency and the city of São Paulo joining in, 3 million students in more than 8,000 schools will be served meatless meals on Mondays.
Meat Free Monday was launched by Paul, Mary, and Stella McCartney in 2009, with aims to ‘raise awareness of the detrimental environmental impact of eating meat, and to encourage people to help slow climate change, conserve precious natural resources and improve their health by having at least one meat free day each week’.