Savor the Flavor-Meatless Mondays

If I told you that you could make a change that would improve your health, improve the health of your community, spice up your kitchen, and also be easy, would you do it? A new public health movement is afoot. It is called Meatless Mondays.

Why should I go meatless one day a week?
Besides the fact that creating meat free recipes is easy, fun, and delicious…

Going meatless one day a week is great for your personal physical health and the health of your family. According to John’s Hopkins, many preventable diseases such as cancer, obesity, heart attacks, and strokes are linked to diets high in meat content. Reducing your meat consumption by even a small amount, a mere one day per week, can reduce the likelihood that you will experience these chronic health conditions.

Eating less meat one day a week is also a great way to help the environment. Getting meat to market generates large amounts of fossil fuel use, water waste, and manure.

http://www.meatlessmonday.com/why-meatless/

Isn’t eating meatless boring?

Eating a meat free diet one day a week does not have to be boring. When I signed on to go meatless one day a week, I had this sort of nightmare that I would eat iceberg lettuce salads and squishy tofu one day a week. To the contrary, I found the process of finding meatless recipes fascinating. Many other counties rely on meat far less than our culture. Going meatless allowed me to explore recipes from around the world. Many of these recipes were amazing.

Who is supporting this movement?

The Meatless Mondays Movement is supported by numerous organizations. Here is a list of a few of the organizations/people that have recognized the health benefits of Meatless Mondays. The list is pretty incredible.

http://www.meatlessmonday.com/whos-going-meatless/

Isn’t going meatless once a week hard?

Going meatless is extremely easy. Almost all of my favorite recipes have easy meat free alterations. I want to make going meatless easy for you. So, I am attaching a few of my favorite recipes to get you started including: sundried tomato pesto, tortilla soup, stuffed peppers and a resource for cooking meatless with kids. Try it one day a week. It is easy and fun.

Good luck and good eating.

For your eating pleasure:

Meatless recipes:

http://www.thekidscookmonday.org/category/recipe/

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/giada-de-laurentiis/penne-with-sun-dried-tomato-pesto-recipe/index.html

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/tortilla-soup/detail.aspx

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/stuffed-peppers-my-way/detail.aspx

http://www.amazon.com/Global-Vegetarian-Cooking-Recipes-Around/dp/1566563828

http://www.meatlessmonday.com/category/dinner/

http://freelancemuses.blogspot.com/ 

History of the movement:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meatless_Monday

http://www.meatlessmonday.com/

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129025298


-Melissa A. Lemke, MA, Research Specialist, Zilber School of Public Health

Wellness Wednesday

It is "Wellness Wednesday" here at ZSPH, and for lunch some of the staff made omelets! We had all the fixings: fresh spinach, mushrooms, red, yellow & green peppers, avocados, ham and cheese. On the side we had wheat toast, and to drink, orange juice!

Our wonderful Development Director, Monika, made everyone's omelets!

Challenging Wisconsin’s Drinking Culture

 According to Vital Signs, the Centers for Disease Control’s monthly call to action on a pressing public health concern, binge drinking is a more pervasive and costly problem than previously estimated.  The report released earlier this month by the CDC indicates that 1 in 6 American adults binge drinks, defined as consuming 5 or more drinks in 2 hours for men and 4 or more drinks in 2 hours for women, putting them at increased risk for injury and disease.  Unfortunately, the numbers show that Wisconsin tops the list of binge-drinking states with 25.6% of adults reporting binge-drinking behavior.  This important report dispels many myths about binge drinking, which may help us better understand and tackle a largely ignored public health problem.  Despite controversies regarding the best way to manage binge drinking, it is important to acknowledge the problem and to start a discussion about changes that can be made on the individual level, as well as the policy level, to mitigate the damages caused by binge drinking.  See the complete report at:  http://www.cdc.gov/vitalsigns/bingedrinking/

Healthy eating along the highway

The Iowa Department of Public Health has received a grant to place healthy food options in highway rest area vending machines. They put traffic light colored stickers on each snack to let people know what snacks are the healthiest (green), healthy (yellow), and not healthy (red). A consultant to the program said they saw an increase in people choosing the green and yellow snacks after 16 weeks of trying out the program. They are looking to increase the amount of healthy choices in the vending machines to 30% by November of this year.

To read the full article, click here.