The two largest school districts in California—Los Angeles Unified and San Diego—have banished meat from their elementary school lunch menus for one day each week, part of a growing trend nationwide among school districts to adopt “Meatless Mondays.”
Los Angeles made the move to an all-veggie school meal menu on Mondays back in March, while San Diego’s board of education voted last month to do the same for the upcoming school year. Major concerns over childhood obesity are driving much of the school meal policy change in districts. In San Diego County, for example, 28 percent of children are overweight or obese.
The move to meatless Mondays in districts started several years ago, with the Baltimore city district being the very first public school system in the United States to take that step.
Other large districts that are participating in meatless Mondays (according to Monday Campaigns, the health advocacy group pushing the initiative) include Miami-Dade County in Fla., and Albuquerque, N.M.