Meatless Monday Potluck - on Sunday - and Optional People's Climate March

Hosted By Santa Cruz Transplants & Friends

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Meatless Monday Potluck - on Sunday - and Optional People's Climate March

Details

Wondering what to make at home on Meatless Monday? Let's try out a bunch of different dishes and find out what you like! I had some requests for a potluck so people could try out some home-cooked food and figure out what to make for themselves. There will be some full-time vegetarians and vegans in attendance who are terrific cooks, so the food should be great and you can get some inspiration!

After the potluck, optionally walk to the clock tower with signs showing support for legislation to stop climate change. (Our potluck is on same day as the massive climate march in NYC preceding the UN Climate Summit.) Even if you don't believe in climate change, clean energy preserves wildlife, reduces harmful pollution, and conserves water, which just about everyone can agree on.

Multiple meetup groups are attending. You come under your own liability to this event.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OwM9ZE-k28

What to Bring

Bring about 8 side-dish-size servings per person of meatless food. Better to err on the side of more than less.
Bring a recipe that lists all ingredients so that people with allergies or food restrictions know what they can eat.
Bring a plate, bowl, utensils, and something for yourself to drink.
Please change your RSVP if you're not coming so we don't stress if you're not there. We will watch for you.
Please say what you're bringing so we have a balance of dishes for our meal.

At the end of this event description are some links to recipe collections so you can get some ideas of what to bring. If possible, since there will be people there who don't eat animal products (because of allergies, health, and so on), if you can bring vegan food, that would be appreciated. It's not a judgment about how you eat: it's merely practical so we have enough food for everyone. Plus, eating no animal products on Meatless Monday is even better for the environment than eating vegetarian! Another alternative is to cook part of your dish vegetarian and leave out the animal product in the other half, or have it as an optional add-on (such as blue cheese on a salad).

RCNV

The Resource Center for Nonviolence is located right across from the county building in downtown Santa Cruz. They do wonderful work in our community promoting peaceful communication and human rights! They wanted to participate in the Meatless Monday campaign, and the result is this potluck: a joint event between our group and the RCNV!

More information:

http://rcnv.org

Help the Environment and March to the Clock Tower

Eating with friends is fun, and even more fun if you're helping the environment at the same time. Reducing animal product consumption helps to reduce your personal contribution to greenhouse gas emissions and climate forcers, including carbon dioxide, methane, black carbon (soot), nitrous oxide, and tropospheric ozone. Plus, eating more veggies is good for you!

Our meatless potluck is a few days before President Obama is meeting with world leaders at the UN Climate Summit. The People's Climate March on September 21 in New York City is shaping up to be the biggest climate march in history. Their goal is to show international leaders that Americans want global climate action, as well as far more than the president has delivered so far.

You can optionally make a sign and walk to the clock tower and back. The march is a show of support for progressive climate change mitigation legislation. Eating fewer animal products is already a huge step toward curbing greenhouse gases (particularly the shorter lived ones) and water conservation, so the potluck alone is a major statement.

To make a simple sign, get a piece of cardboard, glue or tape white paper to it, make an outline in pencil, and then fill in the outline with markers or paint. Please be tasteful in your slogans: no swearing, be polite. We'll also have our "meatless" environmentally themed signs for people to carry.

http://photos4.meetupstatic.com/photos/event/5/2/a/600_404941322.jpeg

There's also another Santa Cruz march happening earlier that day:

http://www.facebook.com/santacruzpeoplesclimatemarch

Even James Cameron, director of the acclaimed environmental series "Years of Living Dangerously" on Showtime, has adopted an environmentally friendly diet after learning the facts:

http://yearsoflivingdangerously.com/what-we-can-do/

More Information About Meatless Monday

Here's more info about the international Meatless Monday campaign:
http://www.meatlessmonday.com/about-us/why-meatless/

Here's the goal of the international Meatless Monday campaign, from their website:

"Meatless Monday is a non-profit initiative of The Monday Campaigns, in association with the Johns Hopkins’ Bloomberg School of Public Health. We provide the information and recipes you need to start each week with healthy, environmentally friendly meat-free alternatives. Our goal is to help you reduce your meat consumption by 15% in order to improve your personal health and the health of the planet."

Here's a proclamation that the Santa Cruz County supervisors put together in support of Meatless Monday:
http://files.meetup.com/161345/MeatlessMondayProclamationSignedSCCsupervisors.pdf

Here is the Meatless Monday Santa Cruz County Facebook page:

http://www.facebook.com/SCruzMM

Recipes!

Vegetarian Times
You can search by ingredients and other criteria!

http://www.vegetariantimes.com/recipe/vegan/

Recipes by Nava Atlas, Cookbook Author

http://www.vegkitchen.com/vegan-dinner-recipes/

26 Vegan Versions Of Your Favorite Comfort Foods

http://www.buzzfeed.com/deenashanker/26-vegan-versions-of-your-favorite-comfort-foods (http://www.buzzfeed.com/deenashanker/26-vegan-versions-of-your-favorite-comfort-foods#329iz7w)

23 Vegan Meals With Tons Of Protein

http://www.buzzfeed.com/deenashanker/vegan-meals-with-tons-of-protein (http://www.buzzfeed.com/deenashanker/vegan-meals-with-tons-of-protein#329iz7w)