Meat Free Week 2013

Hold on to your broccoli stems kids, 18 - 24th March, 2013, is Meat Free Week! It's a week in which we can celebrate a culinary world sans animal flesh. "Lamb chop move aside, it's MY time to shine," (said Mr Beetroot).

In all seriousness, Meat Free Week is an opportunity to think about how much we consume. In case you're wondering, we need to think about this because as a nation, we're consuming way too much. Even the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare agrees - the latest Australian Dietary Guidelines stress that we need to halve our meat consumption immediately. The amount of meat we are eating annually - 120kg per person or 190,000 tonnes nationally - is putting pressure on our environment and our farmers. Carbon, nitrogen and methane emissions, water use and ethically-questionable intensive farming practices result.

What to do and what to cook

The good news is that contributing to a brighter future for our environment, animals and farmers isn't that hard. It simply involves eating less meat (purchased from small, local and ethical farmers) and more vegetables and stuff. By stuff we mean highly nutritious yet super cheap protein sources like beans, lentils, quinoa and other seeds and grains.

To help you prepare and enjoy Meat Free Week, Sustainable Table has developed an absurdly useful FREE recipe booklet designed to cover ALL your meals for the week. That's 21 meat-free recipes at your fingertips - 7 breakfasts, 7 lunches and 7 dinners. It's a trifecta! The booklet also includes a handy shopping list.

Share your photos & win

Of course there's a competition! Share your photos of the meat free recipes you cook from our booklet and be in with a chance to win a copy of the award-winning book The Sustainable Table, valued at $40. Here's what you need to know:

Take snaps of your pretty meat free dishes and share with us either on Facebook or Twitter. Be sure to tag on Facebook using @TheSustainableTable or on Twitter using @SustainTable. At the end of the week the top 3 prettiest pics will be selected and a winner decided! Entries close COB 10pm Sunday 24th March 2013 EST.

You can fundraise for Voiceless too.

Get your friends, family and workmates to sponsor you for the week and the money will go towards supporting the work of Voiceless.

If you're vegetarian or vegan

You can still get involved by encouraging others around you to take up the challenge of a meat free week. Here's a few ideas.

For more information and to download your FREE copy of A Meat Free Week, visit the website.

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