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Post by hal2000 on May 13, 2009 8:37:24 GMT
By Chris Mason
BBC News, Ghent
The Belgian city of Ghent is about to become the first in the world to go vegetarian at least once a week.
Starting this week there will be a regular weekly meatless day, in which civil servants and elected councillors will opt for vegetarian meals.
Ghent means to recognise the impact of livestock on the environment.
The UN says livestock is responsible for nearly one-fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions, hence Ghent's declaration of a weekly "veggie day".
Public officials and politicians will be the first to give up meat for a day.
Schoolchildren will follow suit with their own veggiedag in September.
It is hoped the move will cut Ghent's environmental footprint and help tackle obesity.
Around 90,000 so-called "veggie street maps" are now being printed to help people find the city's vegetarian eateries.
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Post by bixaorellana on May 22, 2009 15:37:19 GMT
Hmmm ~~ don't know if that was deliberate, but it would certainly be a shot in the arm for the local vegetarian restaurants.
It's an intelligent campaign in the sense that it's not creating a veg-good/carnivore-bad debate situation, although there is always that danger.
In a country as small as Belgium, anything that could be done to use farmland more efficiently, i.e. for produce rather than meat production, would be a boon. Added to that would be the possibility of educating people to prefer locally grown produce rather than imports.
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Post by Deleted on May 22, 2009 17:13:32 GMT
Brussels sprouts!
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Post by imec on May 22, 2009 19:26:29 GMT
A secretly funded campaign by the Belgian Endive growers, no doubt.
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Post by bixaorellana on May 22, 2009 19:38:57 GMT
You two wiseacres realize that dark leafy greens are good for mental acuity, do you not.
ahem
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Post by Deleted on May 22, 2009 19:46:11 GMT
So, if I understand you correctly, you are telling us that the Belgians are considered dense by the neighboring countries because they prefer to eat fried potatoes?
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Post by imec on May 22, 2009 19:51:22 GMT
- not to mention, too many waffles...
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Post by Deleted on May 22, 2009 19:53:53 GMT
... and all of those mussels, not the brainiest creatures in the world.
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Post by Deleted on May 22, 2009 20:02:55 GMT
Hello. I see what you are saying and will remember it.
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Post by Deleted on May 22, 2009 20:24:03 GMT
Oops.
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Post by imec on May 22, 2009 20:45:32 GMT
I'm in trouble again?
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Post by bixaorellana on May 22, 2009 20:47:45 GMT
OBVIOUSLY you two people -- yes, you, Imec and you, Kerouac -- are subsisting on diets deficient in dark leafy greens and salt water fish, since you so completely and offensively missed the point.
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Post by imec on May 22, 2009 21:00:21 GMT
Well, it's still Fiddlehead season - maybe they'll smarten me up a bit.
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Post by bixaorellana on May 23, 2009 0:38:13 GMT
 Fiddle-dee-dee! |
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Post by lagatta on May 23, 2009 2:52:25 GMT
Bixa, I don't know whether that elegant brunette young lady if from Louisiana or Mexico, but she sure as hell isn't from Winnipeg ... or Belgium.
Actually les Français very much emulate Belgian frites (called something like "Vlaamse Friets" - Flemish frites or chips - in Netherlands) and there is a popular "Belgian" chain with mussels and frites.
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Post by bixaorellana on May 23, 2009 3:33:50 GMT
Oh dear, LaGatta ~~ you won't be winning the Popular Culture Trivia Award this year. That's Scarlett O'Hara, with Tara in the background.
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Post by Jazz on May 23, 2009 3:38:12 GMT
By Chris Mason BBC News, Ghent The Belgian city of Ghent is about to become the first in the world to go vegetarian at least once a week. Starting this week there will be a regular weekly meatless day, in which civil servants and elected councillors will opt for vegetarian meals. Ghent means to recognise the impact of livestock on the environment. The UN says livestock is responsible for nearly one-fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions, hence Ghent's declaration of a weekly "veggie day". Public officials and politicians will be the first to give up meat for a day. Schoolchildren will follow suit with their own veggiedag in September. It is hoped the move will cut Ghent's environmental footprint and help tackle obesity. Around 90,000 so-called "veggie street maps" are now being printed to help people find the city's vegetarian eateries. This OP puts me in total conflict. My initial reaction was that the food Nazis strike again! I find that in Canada and the US , we suffer from this far more than in Europe...one of the reasons why I love (loved?) to be in Europe. There, I wasn't hounded by where and when to eat certain foods, if at all! In France, I loved that their meals were 'still' special and a respected part of the quality and beauty of daily life...a given....( the freshness of a cantalope?, was the cheese at the perfect moment to be eaten that evening? and many more lovely examples.) Here, day in and day out, there are new proclamations of what to eat, or not to eat, and why...with dire warnings! Then, perhaps 6 months later, a complete reversal. This has been going on for the last 30 years. Beloved statistics: Where do you begin with statistics, given that you can disprove almost any statistics? The UN says that livestock is responsible for 1/5 of global green house emissions Perhaps, but I need more proof than this. We all hear such stats quoted day in and day out, then, disproved. 'It is hoped that the move will cut Ghent's envionmental footprint and help tackle obesity. For generations past, our grandparents and great grandparents were less obese. Meat was part of their daily diet. But our grandparents were not sedentary, as many of us have become with TV, DVD's,computers and the automobile. I think obesity is a result of the tech age (and, its effects), not meat eating. The Belgian city of Ghent is about to become the first in the world to go vegetarian at least once a week.: I respect this effort. At this moment it seems only to include the civil service and schoolchildren on one day in September. The 'veggie street maps ' are also good. I am very interested in seeing the reactions to all of this. Perhaps this will become a broader movement. If so, I think that attention needs to be paid to those who will be 'left behind' in the exorable march of progress....all those involved in the meat industry....huge. A rough analogy is what is now finally beginning in the automobile industry in North America. Massive shutdowns and it has only just begun. I think we need to think carefully and with compassion. Recognition of potential damage and fervent change, I feel should be accompanied with awareness of the social chaos that may result. 'Lecturing' should be dispensed with, help to begin the readjustment should be offered. One lost job with General Motors, the closing of a neighborhood butcher shop, the end of a small dairy farm may seem like 'small potatoes'. It isn't. Not at all. The eating of meat and driving of the automobile have been part of the our existence in western society for 100 years...a century. We need to be careful as we shift, both pragmatically and emotionally. We need to care for the innocent victims ( did the descendents of a third generation dairy farm or, third generation Stelco steel worker family somehow know that they would now be 'wrong'?) NO. We need to help them to re-establish in other productive ways....This pragmatic and emotional 'care' was not taken as we shifted into the high tech computer age with the speed of light. Note: I seldom eat meat, perhaps once every 6-8 weeks for the last 30 years. Fish and poultry are often a part of my daily diet and I love vegetables and fruit. |
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Post by imec on May 23, 2009 4:33:18 GMT
Absolutely, brilliantly said. Thank you.
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Post by lagatta on May 23, 2009 16:33:52 GMT
Yes, that is true. I used to work in the trade union movement here (still freelance) and "industrial reconversion" of polluting or harmful (such as military) industries was an important topic even in the 1980s. Indeed it isn't workers who should bear the brunt of such changes.
Auto is actually not so very difficult, as to have truly carfree cities you'd need a massive investment in public transport. One good thing in Toronto is that you have kept some of the trams - so many cities eliminated them in the postwar period, at the behest of General Motors and car-centred planners. Sure that would take retooling, but the car industry retooled in record time during the Second World War - it is a matter of political will.
The problem with the meat industry is the model of large-scale livestock production, huge slaughterhouses and processing plants etc. But that also applies to agribusiness vegetable production.
I actually find the way the Ghent initiative was worded very sensitive, and not Food-Naziish at all. We've seen the latter with spurious "low-fat" foods that are full of sugars and modified starches, and that may not help people watch their weight at all.
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