The state Agriculture Commissioner for Texas is warning the public of an insidious plot to indoctrinate our children. And it could be coming to a school cafeteria near you.
“This activist movement called ‘Meatless Mondays‘ is a carefully-orchestrated campaign that seeks to eliminate meat from Americans’ diets seven days a week — starting with Mondays,” Ag Commisioner Todd Staples wrote in a recent op-ed for the Austin American-Statesman.
The Dripping Springs school district, outside of Austin, adopted the program recently. It’s part of a growing national trend to offer healthier, more sustainable meals just one day a week.
But Staples says its part of a radical activist agenda by groups like the Humane Society. (The reality is that the program was started by Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health a decade ago).
That kind of hyperbole isn’t surprising coming from Staples. This is the same guy who previously called the Meatless Monday program “treasonous.” He also said that USDA employees who have promoted it are “the enemy” and should be fired.
Why such hostility to Meatless Mondays? Well Staples has received at least $116,000 in campaign contributions from beef and ranching interests since 2010, according to public records. And this treasonous rhetoric is identical to that of the meat industry; just a few days ago I reported on Beef Magazine comparing the Humane Society to ISIS.
The registered dietitian who introduced the program in Dripping Springs says it was in response to growing body of research supporting vegetarian diets. He said parents were asking for veggie options.
Well, except for one outraged parent. The meatless menu was brought to the attention of Staples by an angry mom who—wait for it—just happens to work for the ag industry.
As Asher Price at the Statesman reported, Leah Wilkinson’s family is in the pork industry and she personally works in the animal-feed industry.
Her job? Government relations.
UPDATE: “Protein guidelines vanish from Texas Agriculture website following Meatless Monday drama”
UPDATE 2: Staples announces his resignation after this Meatless Monday controversy.