If you’ve ever visited the Stone Brewing World Bistro & Gardens, you know that we’re pretty obsessed with where our food comes from. We only use in-season, locally, regionally, and organically grown produce. We serve grass-fed beef, free-range chicken, and we’re certified by the World Society for the Protection of Cruelty to Animals as a restaurant that serves humanely-raised meat and dairy products. So we’re pretty satisfied with the degree to which the Stone Brewing World Bistro & Gardens lives up to our ideals. However, there’s always room for improvement, especially when it comes to health and environmental sustainability, so we’ve decided to take things up a notch by participating in the international movement called Meatless Mondays.
Deep Fried Avocado Tacos with Arrogant Bastard Ale batter, one of the many insanely delicious Meatless Monday's menu items at the Stone Brewing World Bistro & Gardens
Don’t panic. It’s voluntary. Think of us as enablers. As in, we’re going to enable you to live a little longer. A little healthier. And benefit our planet in the process. You see, our society has a great challenge upon us. Over the last few generations, America has modified its eating habits at the hands of the mass marketers (we’ve collectively doubled per capita meat consumption has increased by 65% since 1950 in the U.S.) If you thought YOU were in control, looking at the big picture we can see that has not been the case at all. Instead, we have been doing what we’ve been told, and we’ve been fooled into thinking it was our own choice. We have been told to bite down, and Americans have said “How big a bite?” We’ve been programmed. The very fact that you may be feeling that the above does NOT apply to you—“I exhibit free will. No one tells me what to eat!”—is the first sign that they have you. They don’t want you to know about, or to personally admit to, the manipulation. Face it, we’ve been owned. They told us to eat meat and processed foods. More meat. More processed foods. And we listened. We now eat more meat than nearly every other society on the planet. And our health problems have skyrocketed right along with it. However, we know you are not a mindless automaton, and we refuse to treat you like one. “But I eat only eat locally raised meat,” you say. Well that’s great, certainly a step in the right direction (a step we ourselves have taken.) But the distance food travels only accounts for 11% of its carbon footprint. The fact is, meat is far more energy, water, and land intensive than vegetables. Conveniently, this means that reducing your meat intake is the easiest, healthiest, and cheapest way to minimize your personal impact on the environment. It’s time that we throw off these chains of oppression. It’s time that we say “No more…you can no longer treat me like a gullible, uninformed serf of the marketers.” It’s time we say, “I take my health, my happiness, my responsibility to society, my life into my own hands.” It’s time we celebrate the vegetable! And to that, we offer you the opportunity to celebrate Meatless Mondays with us as a step towards a brighter future! Caution: if you howl in protest as a devout meat-eater over the lack of choice, you’re marking yourself as someone who’s not paying attention. You see, you are not being forced to eat meatless on Mondays. You still have the choice to request meat dishes if you so desire. However, if you’d like to be true to our mutual heritage and eat like a caveman, then you’ll embrace a day without meat, as cavemen ate far less meat then we do! Lastly, in the unlikely event anyone has the idea that this is a ploy by us to make more money, please note that our vegetarian items are generally less profitable. That's OK, we'll survive...and likely so will you! EDIT: Here's a link to the Meatless Mondays menu at the Stone Brewing World Bistro & Gardens. Or, download a PDF of the menu.
Comments
Submitted by quarrygirl on August 23, 2010 - 5:04pm
i'd love to come try out your meatless monday specials! are they suitable for vegans? are they posted anywhere online? thanks...
Submitted by Tom on August 23, 2010 - 5:58pm
Thank you for reinforcing the fact that meat is not a requirement to survive or even to complete a meal. Vegetarian food CAN taste good, and will reduce environmental impact. Moderation of meat by itself can reduce your cholesterol, since mostly animal products contain it. I can't find any way this is a bad thing. Thanks Greg.
Submitted by Sarah on August 23, 2010 - 6:37pm
Please don't do Meatless Monday. Please do more research. Support smarter farming methods. Better, more humane and environmentally sound farms will suffer from this too, which is something that badly needs support. Please look into it more. I'm not against vegetarianism, I've consider it a lot myself. I love Stone and I love everything you guys have done, but just consider another side to the matter.
Submitted by matt on August 23, 2010 - 7:56pm
Great call Greg. I'm guessing this at least to some extent may have been influenced by the recent Time magazine article on many famous chef's cutting back on meat portions at their restaurants for essentially the same reasons you state above.
I applaud this idea, and hope that people will jump on board. As Clark said, it's a good exercise in moderation. If it was a hard line "no meat even if you beg and plead for it" Monday, you'd probably get a ton of crap for it. but this is a great step.
Cheers and thanks for all you guys do!
Submitted by Glass on August 24, 2010 - 12:27am
THANK YOU!
As a vegetarian, this gives me yet another reason to love you guys.
Between this and Stone Pale Ale, IPA, and Arrogant Bastard now being available at Trader Joe's, I'm a happy beer drinker.
Submitted by The Wine Commonsewer on August 24, 2010 - 10:17am
I thought I might take issue with a couple of premises but then I realized that you can't argue with AN ARROGANT BASTARD! :-)
we’ve collectively doubled our meat consumption since the 1950s.
That may be true, given that our population has grown by at least 100 million people since then. But I am certain that per capita meat consumption is way down. Every dinner table in America in 1955 was laden with meatloaf, roast beef, pork chops, or fried chicken. Every day. Nobody was eating fettuccine with sun dried tomatoes done in cream sauce. (Editor's Note: Per capita meat consumption in the U.S. rose 65% from 1950 to 2007.)
I also disagree that people are programmed. The reasons people eat the way they do are complex, but they make the choices they do because they want to. The market responds to those desires just as Stone responded to a sliver of the brew market that was looking for a good ale and is, even now, responding to the demand for a better variety of vegetarian dishes. BTW, the tacos look spectacular.
Cheers,
TWC
Submitted by brett on August 24, 2010 - 11:42am
a real caveman dish would probably consist of some nuts, wild berries or fruit, maybe some bugs, and fresh greens. whatever is in plentiful supply. vegetarian food doesn't sound bad to me, as long as its not beerless monday im in.
Submitted by Eni on August 28, 2010 - 9:13am
Lovely, lovely, lovely, but I take issue with some of your wording.
"The very fact that you may be feeling that the above does NOT apply to you—“I exhibit free will. No one tells me what to eat!”—is the first sign that they have you."
Pardon me? Talk about rude and presumptuous. Talk about insulting your potential audience from the outset. Are you at all aware that this movement you are a part of is not a tiny one by any means? Are you aware of how many people actually are CORRECT when they say that they have free will when it comes to what they eat?
Submitted by Joe on August 31, 2010 - 6:34am
Applause, applause. I don't take issue with the wording. It's a choice being offered with a rational explaination. The fact that you have to explain the concept is mind-boggling.
Keep up the good work!
Submitted by Brewseattle on September 5, 2010 - 8:20pm
I happened on this post accidentally and was surprised to hear that there is a movement called Meatless Mondays. I have been slowly altering my diet for the last few months and thought of the phrase "meatless Monday" to help me eat differently on Mondays. I also came up with "thirsty Thursday" to unfortunately remind me not to drink beer on Thursday :(. BBQ Fridays are all good though :).
I wonder if I was programmed somewhere else and subconsciously had the meatless Monday put in my head. I'll worry about that later after I finish this pint of Ruination.
Submitted by dj evolved on September 13, 2010 - 3:56pm
Excellent information! Thank you for putting that out there and hopefully turning some people on to the marketing that makes people feel like less of an American or less of a "man" for not eating 10 lbs of red meat a week.
Submitted by Peter Gross on November 21, 2010 - 3:56pm
Good for you, Stone Brewery! If you look at hunter gatherer societies, which is what we all were before about 10,000 years ago, meat only makes about 30% of their diet. Hopefully more people will take your example and eat less, and better meat. I say this as an avid hunter and fisherman. Meat is good, in small quantities. Of course, so is your beer, in any quantity. :)
Submitted by Clark on August 23, 2010 - 4:13pm
Pretty good idea. Like most things that actually work, this is an exercise in moderation. Neither extreme on one end nor the other.