Foodista goes Meatless this week

A couple of weeks ago, we announced that we are participating in Meatless Mondays, a campaign run in association with the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University. The goal of Meatless Mondays is to raise awareness of the health and environmental benefits of eating less meat; reducing our meat consumption by 15% (equal to one day a week) can make a huge difference.

We're in our third week, and things are going well. In order to prove that it can be easy and fun (or at least not all that painful) to give up meat on Mondays, the Foodista Blog is going meatless all this week. Every day, we'll feature exciting and delicious vegetarian dishes. For some members of Team Foodista, a week without meat will be easy; we already do not eat it or eat it sparingly. For others (particularly the Mangalitsa Lard Chicken Confit lovers), it may be more of a challenge.

Whether it's permanently or even for just a day, the prospect of going vegetarian can be intimidating to some people because they feel they will need to give up their favorite foods or learn how to cook in an entirely new and unfamiliar way. While it's true that vegetarian cooking can be an excellent way to experiment with different recipes and techniques, it doesn't need to be. Many of our most beloved dishes are already meatless. Is a day, week, or lifetime of eating falafel, hummus, polenta, baked ziti, or muttar paneer really all that terrible?

Here's what a Meatless Monday might look like:

Breakfast:

Lunch:

Dinner:

Dessert:

What are your favorite meatless dishes?

A few blogs also participating in Meatless Mondays:

• Ezra Poundcake
• Suburban Spoon
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