Imagine if your town decided that for one day each week all the restaurants would only serve vegetarian meals. I’ve written in this space before about eating vegetarian at least once a week, but that was just in our house. What if that rule extended to the entire city of Washington D.C.?

Well it’s not too hard to imagine in the Belgian city of Ghent. Ghent, a city 45 minutes west of Brussels, has decided to make that a reality. The BBC reports, “starting this week there will be a regular weekly meatless day, in which civil servants and elected councillors will opt for vegetarian meals.”

An interview (embedded in the article) with the deputy mayor says that there will be meat options available only upon request.

The article also says that starting in September, ‘Veggie Days’ (veggiedag) will be implemented at school cafeteria’s.

One of the motivating factors behind the new initiative are numbers that show “livestock is responsible for nearly one-fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions.” So by cutting down the amount of meat you eat, you’re improving your carbon footprint.

In the spirit of vegetarianism, here are a few vegetarian recipes: