In 2009 the Belgian city of Ghent, famous for its gastronomy, became the first city in the world to become vegetarian at least once a week. Ghent, one of Europe’s 370 “climate cities”, is making every Thursday a meat-free day, encouraging local people to turn to vegetables that day. This was a pioneering first step in the effort to tackle global warming, and address animal welfare and obesity. Some people are calling the city the veggie capital of Europe. It offers more vegetarian restaurants per head than Paris, London and Berlin.

Eating less meat is a big step in minimising food’s eco-footprint. Stock breeding and meat consumption impacts on the environment ; meat herds are said to be responsible for 18% of the world’s emission of greenhouse gasses. Ghent celebrates the anniversary of Veggie day on Thursday 6th May 2010.

photo credit: Satoru Kikuchi