40% Off Meatless Mondays To Launch April 26th

Down to Earth will launch "Meatless Mondays" beginning on Monday April 26th, and every Monday after that. Customers will get up to 40% off the regular price of selected ALL VEGETARIAN Preferred Brand items. Meatless Mondays will become one of Down to Earth's signature events.

"The idea behind Meatless Mondays is to encourage everyone to go meatless once a week," explains Mark Fergusson, Down to Earth's Chief Vegetarian Officer.

"Our goal is to make it easier for everyone to go meatless on Mondays by giving them big savings on great tasting meat alternatives. By eating less meat people can reduce global warming, protect the environment, and improve their health" says Fergusson. "There are only positive benefits to going meatless, with no unwelcome tradeoffs or unintended negative side effects.”

"Participating in Meatless Mondays will help improve your health, help reduce your carbon footprint, and save you money while you do it!"

The Meatless Mondays Sale will be on selected ALL VEGETARIAN Preferred Brand items, initially from the following brands:

• Amy’s: In 1988, Andy and Rachel Berliner didn’t set out to create the nation’s leading natural frozen food brand. They simply wanted to make delicious, convenient vegetarian meals that they enjoy and share them with other busy families. Twenty two years later, Amy's sells over 170 delicious items to satisfy all tastes. http://www.amys.com
• Follow Your Heart. Follow Your Heart celebrates four decades of quality, innovation, compassion and integrity. Their flagship product Vegenaise® is the top selling all natural, refrigerator-fresh, eggless mayonnaise. Vegan Gourmet® products, fresh natural and organic dressings, and "Chicken Free Chicken" are some of the other innovative vegetarian cuisine Follow Your Heart is proud to offer. http://www.followyourheart.com
• Turtle Island: At Turtle Island Foods, our Tofurky® and tempeh products are created to promote the health and vitality of both the people and the ecosystems of our "island" home. http://www.tofurky.com
• Wai Lana: Wai Lana offers all-natural supplements, body care products and a line of delicious healthy snacks. The Wai Lana line includes natural health, fitness, and beauty products that are practical and effective as well as beautiful and inspiring. Wai Lana also provides yoga and Pilates products for both adults and children. http://www.wailana.com

Historical Roots in US History
Meatless Monday is a non-profit initiative of The Monday Campaigns, in association with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. The campaign has historical roots in WWI and WWII USA government food rationing campaigns. With the slogan “One day a week cut out meat,” it has recently grown into an international movement supported by celebrities such as Sir Paul McCartney. A resolution favoring Meatless Mondays was recently unanimously adopted by the San Francisco City Supervisors.

Here are a few points of interest about the historical roots of Meatless Mondays:

• During World War I, the U.S. Food Administration urged families to reduce consumption of key staples to aid the war effort. “Food Will Win the War,” the government proclaimed, and “Meatless Monday” and “Wheatless Wednesday” were introduced to encourage Americans to do their part.
• Herbert Hoover, then head of the Food Administration, spearheaded implementation of the campaign. In addition to advertising, his office created and distributed recipe booklets and menus in newspapers, magazines and pamphlets.
• The effect was overwhelming. Some 10 million families, 7,000 hotels and nearly 425,000 food dealers pledged to observe national meatless days. In November 1917, New York City hotels saved some 116 tons of meat over the course of just one week. According to a 1929 Saturday Evening Post article, “Americans began to look seriously into the question of what and how much they were eating. Lots of people discovered for the first time that they could eat less and feel no worse – frequently for the better”.
• The campaign returned during World War II and beyond, when Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman used rationing to help feed war-ravaged Europe.
• In 2003 Meatless Monday was recreated as public health awareness program in association with Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health’s Center for a Livable Future. The campaign was endorsed by over 20 schools of public health. Its goal was to help Americans reduce their risk of preventable disease by cutting back saturated fat.

More information about meatless Mondays can be found at www.meatlessmonday.com