Los Angeles is hoping to persuade people to become vegetarian – at least one day per week. Under a resolution unanimously approved by the city council this week, all future Mondays in the City of Angels have been declared "Meatless Mondays."
Both the spiritual home of the hamburger and a haven for the health-obsessed, Los Angeles became the largest city in the nation to support the Meatless Monday campaign. The nonprofit initiative, started in 2003, is associated with Johns Hopkins University's public health school.It's part of an international campaign to cut down on meat consumption for health and environmental reasons.
Councilwoman Jan Perry, who introduced the motion with Councilman Ed Reyes, noted the environmental impacts of meat production, and she emphasized that a high-meat diet has been linked to health problems such as colon, prostate, kidney and breast cancers, as well as heart disease.
"Eating less meat can prevent and even reverse some of our nation's most common illnesses," Perry said.
"We've become disconnected in some ways from the simple truth that our health is directly affected by the foods we eat,'' she added.
