WASHINGTON, June 22, 2016 - Lawmakers are telling the
Pentagon to forget about the idea of Meatless Mondays.
An amendment that the House adopted to the Defense Department’s fiscal 2016
spending bill would prohibit the Pentagon from removing meat from its food
service program manual. The concern grows out of the Coast Guard Academy’s 10
percent reduction in meat consumption by cadets at the school.
Rep. Adrian Smith, the Nebraska Republican who sponsored the
amendment, worries that the meat-reduction effort will spread to the services.
“Ideologically motivated activists are working to take meat off the menu in
institutions across the country,” Smith told colleagues. “There’s plenty of
evidence of this, and I hope that we can limit these efforts to ensure that our
men and women in uniform have the choices of nutrition at their ready.”
Rep. Pete Visclosky, D-Ind., accused Smith of trying to
micromanage the military. “I appreciate the gentlemen’s concern about
ideological activists attacking the menus at the Department of Defense. But I
do trust they will have the fortitude to resist those particular attacks.”
Smith’s amendment was adopted on a voice vote. Sen. Joni
Ernst, R-Iowa, prepared a similar amendment to the Senate’s Defense
authorization bill but was unable to get a vote.
Colin Woodall, senior vice president of government affairs
for the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, said the meatless Monday
campaign was “anti-meat and anti-farmer.”
“U.S. military personnel have the right to eat what they
want and what is best for their bodies in the execution of their jobs,” Woodall
said.
#30
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