From Plate to Planet: What Happens When You Go Meatless Once a Week?

Sami Hoeldtke
Aug 4
5 min read

A popular routine to test out in the pursuit of eating less meat is participating in Meatless Mondays. But what is Meatless Monday, and does it actually make a difference?

Various meat products in cartons surround a sign reading "CARBON FOOTPRINT" on a turquoise background. Text below asks about meat reduction.

The name pretty much tells you all you need to know. In short, "Meatless Monday is a global movement that encourages people to reduce meat in their diet for both health and environmental reasons. The campaign for Meatless Monday was officially started in 2003 by Sid Lerner, the Founder of The Monday Campaigns, in association with the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future.” but it has gained a lot of traction in recent years. The whole idea is that you eat plant-based meals for one day a week to help reduce your meat consumption and have a positive impact on the environment, but does it really make a difference? This article explores just that.

There are 2 main motivations behind this movement: your physical health, and the health of the environment.

**Disclaimer: the information presented in this article is in no way prescriptive, always consult with your medical professional regarding any dietary changes. The information presented in this article is widely and publically available and is not intended as dietary advice**

Health Impacts of High Rates of Meat Consumption

The regular consumption of animal products is associated with a variety of health risks. This article explores some of those claims and what they mean. To begin, certain meat products are known to be carcinogenic meaning they have the potential to cause cancer. The International Agency for Research on Cancer, which is a part of the World Health Organization, deems red meat as a group 2a carcinogen and processed meats as a group 1 carcinogen.

The classification of red meat means it is “probably carcinogenic to humans,” the full description of what this means from the World Health Organization is as follows:

“In the case of red meat, the classification is based on limited evidence from epidemiological studies showing positive associations between eating red meat and developing colorectal cancer as well as strong mechanistic evidence.

Limited evidence means that a positive association has been observed between exposure to the agent and cancer but that other explanations for the observations (technically termed chance, bias, or confounding) could not be ruled out.”

To put simply, there has been an observed association between the consumption of red meat and the development of colorectal cancer, but there could also be other factors that contribute to the development of cancer.

The classification of processed meats means it "is carcinogenic to humans," and the full description is as follows:

“This category is used when there is sufficient evidence of carcinogenicity in humans. In other words, there is convincing evidence that the agent causes cancer. The evaluation is usually based on epidemiological studies showing the development of cancer in exposed humans.

In the case of processed meat, this classification is based on sufficient evidence from epidemiological studies that eating processed meat causes colorectal cancer.”

Simply put, there has been enough research done and enough evidence found to confidently say eating processed meats causes colorectal cancer.

Besides cancer studies, there is a vast amnount of evidence to suggest a link between the intake of red and processed meats and having a higher risk of developing heart disease, diabetes and premature death among other things. The question now becomes, how much meat should we be eating, if any?

While the answer to that question is up for debate, Dr. Frank Hu, the Chair of Department of Nutrition at Harvard's T.H. Chan School of Public Health provides a general recommendation that people should "stick to no more than 2-3 servings per week" adding "The evidence shows that people with a relatively low intake have lower health risks,"

The average American currently consumes 5 servings of red and processed meats per week, nearly double the recommended amount based on health risk data.

Adopting Meatless Mondays or something similar could aid in reducing overall meat consumption to a rate closer within the recommended health guidelines.

Environmental Impacts of High Rates of Meat Consumption

Animal agriculture is responsible for 14.5% of greenhouse gas emissions, which is roughly the same as the entire transportation sector. And compared to plant-based foods, animal products have been estimated to contribute more to GHGs, deforestation, ocean acidification, biodiversity loss, and unhealthy humans, (Poore & Nemecek, 2018). The (western) agricultural sector has a wide array of negative impacts on the environment in addition to emissions such as deforestation, animal and food waste, water use and waste, and pesticide contamination.

When it comes to carbon dioxide emissions specifically, these numbers can be broken down to determine what the impact of raising each type of popular animal is.

The production of 1 pound of beef in a feedlot or CAFO generates 14.8 pounds of carbon dioxide, 3.8 pounds of carbon dioxide are emitted per pound of pork produced, and 1.1 pounds of carbon dioxide are emitted per pound of chicken produced.

This does not include methane production, which is an even more powerful greenhouse gas mainly associated with beef production.

Based on the average amount of meat consumption and per capita in the USA and how that is distriuted between beef, pork and chicken, an estimate of carbon dioxide emissions associated with the average persons meat intake can be calculated.

This comes in at a 1,161.62 pounds of CO2 emissions per person associated with the average American's intake of chicken, beef, and pork.

What would happen if you started participating in Meatless Mondays? If everyone started participating in Meatless Mondays?

For the sake of this example, let’s assume the average person's meat intake is evenly distributed throughout the week. If the average person participated in Meatless Mondays, reducing their intake by 1/7th, that would be a reduction of about 166 pounds of carbon dioxide per year associated with their diet. Of course, this would decrease slightly do to the increase of plants or plant-based foods to replace that, but as already discussed, those are associated with much lower emission volumes.

What does 166 pounds of CO2 look like?

That would be the emission equivalent of charging 9,159 smartphones.

So if you’re sitting there asking yourself I’m just one person, would that even make a difference? The answer is yes, it would make a difference.

Now imagine of you got your friends to join you in this, your partner, your coworkers. Imagine if the whole country did this, or some version of this.

The Meatless Monday approach is bottom-up, meaning it is led by those lowest on the totem pole in the chain of hierarchy and production (the consumer). Collective action has the power to influence the top of the chain as it adjusts to consumer demand. Together, we have an opportunity to make a difference.