Meat-free days are declared to discourage or prohibit the consumption of meat on certain days of the week. Mondays and Thursdays are the most popular days. There are also movements encouraging people giving up meat on a weekly, monthly, or permanent basis.
Abstention from meat was historically done for religious reasons (e.g. the Friday Fast). In the Methodist Church, during Lent "abstinence from meat one day a week is a universal act of penitence".[1] Anglicans (Episcopalians) and Roman Catholics also traditionally observe Friday as a meat-free day.[2][3] Historically, Anglican and Catholic countries enforced prohibitions on eating meat on certain days of Lent. In England, for example, "butchers and victuallers were bound by heavy recognizances not to slaughter or sell meat on the weekly 'fish days', Friday and Saturday."[4] In the Eastern Orthodox Church, Wednesdays and Fridays are meat-free days.[5] In the Lutheran Church, Fridays and Saturdays are historically considered meat-free days.[6]
Meat-free days have also been observed due to wartime rationing (e.g. Meatless Tuesdays in Canada[7] and the United States—which also observed Wheatless Wednesdays—during World War I)[8][9] or in states with failing economies.
In the People's Republic of Poland, meat-free days were encouraged by the government due to market forces. They were aimed at limiting meat consumption, primarily in favour of flour-based foods. The meat-free day was traditionally Friday, Monday or Wednesday.
Attempts to reintroduce meat-free days are part of a campaign to reduce anthropogenic climate change and improve human health and animal welfare by reducing factory farming and promoting vegetarianismorveganism.
In the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, there is a list of "Days of Fasting, or Abstinence," consisting of the 40 days of Lent, the ember days, the three rogation days (the Monday to Wednesday following the Sunday after Ascension Day), and all Fridays in the year (except Christmas, if it falls on a Friday).
Friday is a day of abstinence and self-denial for Catholics in health, and, by tradition, this became a meat-free day.
The main legally enforced prohibition in both Catholic and Anglican countries was that against meat. During Lent, the most prominent annual season of fasting in Catholic and Anglican churches, authorities enjoined abstinence from meat and sometimes "white meats" (cheese, milk, and eggs); in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England butchers and victuallers were bound by heavy recognizances not to slaughter or sell meat on the weekly "fish days," Friday and Saturday.
In the Orthodox groups, on ordinary Wednesdays and Fridays no meat, olive oil, wine, or fish can be consumed.
Of the Eating of Meat: One should abstain from the eating of meat on Fridays and Saturdays, also in fasts, and this should be observed as an external ordinance at the command of his Imperial Majesty.
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