Photograph: Wojtek Szymczak

Three colleges have adopted the Meat Free Mondays concept, with New, Brasenose and Jesus all introducing the scheme in some form.

The idea of the movement, started by Paul McCartney, is to highlight the impact that eating meat has on the environment in terms of the resources that farming meat takes up. New College, which passed its Meat Free
Monday's motion on Sunday, now has a system where all students are classed as vegetarian on Mondays unless they choose to opt out.

Jesus College is the only college that passed a motion to have a completely meat-free Monday. Ross Evans, JCR President commented, "Don't get me wrong, there was still some opposition at the end, but reasoned discussion
left little doubt which option we should take - and in the end the JCR voted pretty conclusively." However, the motion has often caused controversy in the colleges; Magdalen had its motion to introduce Meat Free Monday's defeated by 13 votes to 9.

Whilst the Meat Free Monday movement seems to have gained momentum it is clear students are never pleased when restrictions are placed on their choice of the most important college provision, food.

Comments

Ross (JCR President, Jesus)

27th January at 7.35pm

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While it's nice to see it getting a bit of press coverage, this doesn't really convey the real weight of the change. We do not have an intrinsic right to eat meat everyday. I'd never advocate banning meat, but as we consume 50% too much each week - going meat free for one day will saves money, is better for us, better for others, and gets people to take the first step in changing their lifestyle

Zachris (History and Politics undergraduate)

28th January at 11.00pm

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I think the framing Meat Free Mondays as restricting freedom is misguided. According to Ban Ki-Moon, around 300 000 people are dying annually because of climate change. According to World Watch's latest research, 51 % of greenhouse gas emissions is caused by meat production. Surely by consuming meat, we restrict people's right to live a lot more than by restricting meat eating?

Carnivore

29th January at 1.36am

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Wadham too. There are a bunch of us with plans to BBQ plenty of dead animal outside the refectory, thus creating "Free meat Mondays"...

M

29th January at 3.17am

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This change has no weight at all - if anything, it is an example of how JCR's get taken hostage by individuals who rely on easy-to-come-by majority votes in order to inflict their personal ways of life on others by defining them as 'better' The argumentation the JCR President falls back on could be used to justify all kinds of illiberal incursions into students' lives. My lifestyle, not the JCR's

Additional provisions

30th January at 3.28am

x

Jesus (college) specifically agreed to forgo to eating of shellfish, animals of the cloven hoof, and those which chew their own cud.

Frank Carle

23rd February at 4.25pm

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St Hughs already has an extremely environmentally friendly policy of using local British meat and produce. The vast majority of Carbon "produced" by the creation of food is in the transportation of that food from where it is created to where it is consumed. Exotic fruits such as Bananas, Oranges and other vegetarian treats imported from abroad have a much larger impact on carbon emissions.