Meat-free day

Meat-free days are declared to discourage or prohibit the consumption of meat on certain days of the week. Historically, this was generally done for religious reasons (e.g. the Friday Fast). In the Methodist Church, during the season of Lent, "abstinence from meat one day a week is a universal act of penitence." Anglicans (Episcopalians) and Roman Catholics traditionally observe Friday as a meat-free day as well. Historically, Anglican and Catholic countries enforced prohibitions against eating meat on certain days of Lent. In England, for example, "butchers and victuallers were bound by heavy recognizances not to slaughter or sell meat on the weekly 'fish days,' Friday and Saturday." In the Eastern Orthodox Church, both Wednesdays and Fridays are meat-free days. In the Lutheran Church, both Fridays and Saturdays are historically considered meat-free days.

Meat-free days have also been practiced due to rationing during wartime (e.g. Meatless Tuesdays in Canada along with the United States, which also instituted Wheatless Wednesdays, during WWI ), or in states with failing economies. Today there are attempts to reintroduce meat-free days as part of a campaign to reduce anthropogenic climate change and improve human health and animal welfare by reducing factory farming.

It has been endorsed by the city councils of Ghent, Belgium; Hasselt, Belgium; Mechelen, Belgium; São Paulo, Brazil; Bremen, Germany; and Cape Town, South Africa. The City of Los Angeles has declared all Mondays to be "Meatless Mondays," citing actions by the Baltimore City Public School System, Oakland Unified School District, along with other school districts in Arlington, VA, Oneida, NY and Longmont, CO, as well as the cities of San Francisco, Takoma Park, MD, and Annapolis, MD, Marin County, CA, and the Council of the District of Columbia.

In the People's Republic of Poland, the meat-free day was a custom cultivated by the government because of a deficit in the market. It was targeted at limiting meat consumption, mainly in favour of flour-based foods. The meat-free day was traditionally Monday, or later Wednesday. For older generations non-meat day is Friday.