One Day Makes a Difference

	©Josh Mugele
	Eleanor Mugele and dad, Josh, practice the three Rs to reduce farm animal suffering.

When nine-year-old Eleanor learned about the suffering of animals on factory farms and in slaughterhouses, she decided to do something about it. 

"I want to be vegetarian at least part of the time so that I don't have to kill as many animals," she says.


It Takes Two

Eleanor's father, Josh Mugele, is supportive of his daughter's plan and committed to join her in being a part-time vegetarian. He decided to turn Eleanor's idea into an increasingly popular blog called Vegetarian Wednesday.  Besides their blog's strong web presence, the online efforts of this father-daughter team have been chronicled in the Ann Arbor News and GreenOptions.


Better for Animals and Health

Josh explains, "I'm a medical student at the University of Michigan, and you wouldn't believe how many of our lectures have mentioned obesity, diabetes and hypertension as huge risk factors for so many different diseases like heart disease and kidney failure.

So, we cited studies on our blog that show how healthy a reduced meat diet is—it improves long-term heart health, it reduces obesity, it reduces diabetes and it cuts down on cholesterol."

Tips from the Team

What's Eleanor's advice to other kids who want to cut back on animal products?

"Have fun. Try to create some new recipes. Ask your parents to buy some products. I like corndogs and 'chicken' patties that taste like meat—but they're not meat!"

When it comes to Josh's favorite recipes, he says, "I like spicy foods, so I really dig Pad Thai with tofu.  Or I make a penne pasta with marinara sauce and sautéed bell peppers, mushrooms, and zucchini.

Soups are easy to eat without missing the meat.  And once we got used to it, we started branching out a bit—using tofu in our meals, for example, and incorporating a wide variety of vegetables in our cooking.  Now, I could probably come up with a dozen vegetarian meals without much effort."


What You Can Do

Check out the Vegetarian Wednesday blog—you can swap recipes, share stories, order t-shirts, and track the animals you are helping.

And as Josh, Eleanor, and their faithful blog readers have discovered, you may realize that you're craving healthy and delicious vegetarian meals many more days of the week!

Every Day—Every Step—Counts

Every hour in the United States, one million animals are killed for our dinner plates. If each one of us cut back on meat by only 10 percent, about one billion animals would be spared a lifetime of suffering each year. 

By practicing the three Rs, we can help reduce animal suffering.