Day of the lentil burghers: Ghent goes veggie to lose weight and saveplanet

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environmen...vegetarian-day

Day of the lentil burghers: Ghent goes veggie to lose weight and save
planet

• Belgian city hopes radical experiment will catch on
• Meat, fish and seafood off the menu every Thursday

Vegetarians in Ghent

Vegetarian delights such as soya fritters, eggless mayo and aubergine
caviar will become part of Ghent's diet every Thursday. Photograph:
Gianni Barbieux

On the bouncy play platform outside Ghent's 15th century
slaughterhouse, the banana was thumping the beefsteak.

The two boys battled in the drizzle yesterday, the one in the fruity
yellow costume serving up another veggie victory over his rival in
bloody scarlet.

The parent onlookers laughed and munched another soya fritter. Mmm,
yummy, said the man with a heart condition. They queued five-deep in
the rain to dip their organic, wholegrain bread in the aubergine
caviar, to smear their lips with eggless mayo. Another pure fruit
vitamin cocktail under the marquee?

"This is pretty special, pretty unique," said Tobias Leenaert, an anti-
meat campaigner. "An entire city proclaiming one day a week a veggie
day."

Ghent embarks on a radical experiment today, seeking to make every
Thursday a day free of meat and of the fish and shellfish for which
the city is renowned.

On the eve of what is being touted as an unprecedented exercise, the
biggest queue in the Flemish university town of 200,000 yesterday was
for signatures – to collect a bag of wholefood goodies and sign up for
"Donderdag – Veggie Dag", turning the burghers of Ghent into pioneers
in the fight against obesity, global warming, cruelty to animals and
against the myth that meat-free eating amounts to a diet of soggy
lettuce, a slice of tomato, and a foul-tasting bean burger.

The city council says it is the first town in Europe and probably the
western world to try to make the entire place vegetarian for a day
every week. Tom Balthazar, the Labour party councillor pushing the
scheme, said: "There's nothing compulsory. We just want to be a city
that promotes sustainable and healthy living."

Every restaurant in the city is to guarantee a vegetarian dish on the
menu, with some going fully vegetarian every Thursday. From September,
the city's schools are to make a meat-free meal the "default" option
every Thursday, although parents can insist on meat for their
children. At least one hospital wants to join in.

A small, dreamy city of spires, bicycles, and canals, prospering since
the Middle Ages, Ghent may be on to something. It appears to be
tapping into a zeitgeist awareness of the cost to human health and the
environment of intensive meat and dairy farming. Other towns in
Belgium and the Netherlands are making inquiries; there has even been
one from Canada.

"We hope that the university, other institutions, enterprises and
other towns will jump on the train," said Leenaert, director of the
local branch of Flanders' Ethical Vegetarian Association (EVA).

The organisers cite UN data arguing that meat production and
consumption are to blame for 18% of greenhouse gases – more than cars.
"If everyone in Flanders does not eat meat one day a week, we will
save as much CO2 in a year as taking half a million cars off the
road," said the EVA.

"I never touch meat, unless I'm at my grandmother's and I need to be
polite," said Karien De Temmermann, a young EVA member.

"This is not a plan for everyone to be forced into vegetarianism,"
said Wim Coenen, a vegan who works as an importer of vegetarian pet
food from Italy. "But it will reduce our carbon footprint. The basic
premise is to introduce a way of lessening our meat consumption."

The revolution starts today with a foodie festival at the vegetable
market. Ninety thousand town maps listing the best eateries for the
meat-shy are being handed out. Recipe booklets and food samples are
being distributed, with fair trade wine to wash down the nibbles. A
nearby restaurant is serving a four-course veggie lunch for €12. The
kebab house on the market is eschewing the doner for broadbean falafel
and haloumi cheese.

Ghent boasts a string of outstanding restaurants and is well-known for
gourmet vegetarian cuisine. The council reckons it has more veggie
eateries per capita than London, Paris or Berlin.

The Lib-Lab coalition running the city was persuaded to back the idea
when Philippe van den Bulck, an outstanding culinary talent, served up
a veggie gastronomic tour de force at the town hall. He is one of
Flanders's top chefs and food writers, doing time at El Bulli in
Spain, to many the best restaurant in the world. He is also a
vegetarian.

On May 15, 9:16*pm, hackamore wrote:
pig brother wrote:
Tom Balthazar, the Labour party councillor pushing the
scheme, said: "There's nothing compulsory. We just want to be a city
that promotes sustainable and healthy living."

Every restaurant in the city is to guarantee a vegetarian dish

so basically some undernourished stick figure counselor got a
non-binding resolution passed to ask the restaurants to pretty please
have a vegetarian dish on the menu 1 day a week.



well its a start ;-)

hackamore wrote:
:: so basically some undernourished stick figure counselor got a
:: non-binding resolution passed to ask the restaurants to pretty please
:: have a vegetarian dish on the menu 1 day a week.

Sound like a win/win situation.