What Happened to the Original Intent of Meatless Monday?

Have any of you thought about doing a Meatless Monday?  During the depression and the wars our grandparents and great-grandparents did without a lot, meat and wheat were two of the biggies.  Today, we are experiencing our own type of depression, whether the government recognizes it or not, or at least my house is!  My finances have never been so depressed!  I’ve seen  some Meatless Monday recipes and buttons on blogs and thought maybe this would be a neat thing to try in my home.  There is a new Meatless Monday movement going on!  But this movement seems to have hijacked the original intent and it’s more about furthering a healthy lifestyle which is great for everyone and we can all eat better, but right now, I’m tired of the government trying to take away my toy in the Happy Meal box.  But, I do find the original intent of Meatless Monday interesting and I wonder if my family can do it and how much money would we save?  I’d love to know if anyone else does it.

The original intent of Meatless Monday was due to food rationing to help with the war efforts and then during the depression to save money.  If you’d like to read the history, here is the link:  http://www.meatlessmonday.com/history/.  Although we aren’t experiencing food rationing in our country, we are experiencing money rationing in our homes.  I’d like to try it as the original, vintage version and not the one that has been hijacked by our government (or a health advocacy group) and health nuts as a way to get Americans to quit eating meat or reduce our carbon footprint.  It used to be about being patriotic, helping the troops and saving money at home. They have a major campaign going on and have gotten schools, restaurants and counties to sign on to the newer version of the movement.   I wonder, beneath the movement why do they really want us to not eat meat for a day?  What’s wrong with meat? Nothing as far as I’m concerned except for the hormones and all of the other stuff they inject into cows.  Fortunatley for my family, we buy from local farmers and most of our meat comes from them and not the stores. I just want to help my family survive this rougth economic time period and have a little change left over to help pay a bill or two.  If we healthier in the process, then great, but let it be my decision.  Vegetarians, please don’t get me wrong; it would be easy for me personally to become a vegetarian, but not my meat loving man.  So I do eat vegetarian when possible!  But I’m not doing this for health reasons as much as for purse reasons and meat is expensive.

I’m not sure how easy this is going to be for my family, after all we are carnivores!  But, I think with some creative planning, it might be possible.  I’ve estimated my savings to be $15 each Monday.  I’ll check with hubby on the estimate.  That doesn’t sound like a lot, but think about it.  That’s a couple of gallons of gas, the price of a movie ticket with enough change to buy a drink.  Over the course of 4 weeks that’s $60!  Still you say that’s not a lot of money, but it could purchase my kids some new clothes for the summer.  Then over the course of one year, drumroll please….$780!  That’s more than enough to pay off a bill, buy Christmas with tons left over, a new wardrobe for me, hubby and the kids, the list is endless!  So maybe it’s going to be worth the effort of going totally meatless for one day a week!