Earlier this week, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that all public schools in the Big Apple would practice “Meatless Mondays” during the 2019-2020 school year.

In a press conference, de Blasio said, “Cutting back on meat a little will improve New Yorkers’ health and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. We’re expanding Meatless Mondays to all public schools to keep our lunch and planet green for generations to come.”

This decision will impact 1.1 million public school students in New York City. For many underprivileged kids, the breakfasts and lunches provided at school are the only wholesome, filling meals they may get in a day.

Without nutrient-dense and satiating animal fats and proteins, this is a dangerous, elitist and foolish policy that truly hurts our kids. But hey, it sounds good as political rhetoric, right?

The timing of this announcement couldn’t be more ironic. On the same day of this announcement, USDA also made a big announcement of its own.

The agency unveiled new research that finds that beef cattle production in the United States is not a “significant contributor” to long-term global warming.

"The environmental footprint of producing beef has long been debated. One challenge is that the impacts extend beyond just those associated with growing the animals and include the impact of producing feed and other inputs,” commented Marlen Eve, USDA ARS deputy administrator for natural resources and sustainable agricultural systems.

Related:4 facts on cows & climate change that can’t be ignored

“This is further complicated by the diversity of ways that beef cattle are managed and fed. It is important to have an accurate quantification of these impacts to provide a baseline against which production system sustainability can be assessed and improved.”

The USDA’s research results are not the first of its kind. The EPA has also conducted research, which shows direct emissions from beef cattle in the United States only account for 2% of the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions.

Any guesses how much transportation and electricity contribute? Combined, it’s a whopping 55%, and we are worried about eating burgers on Mondays, why?
Clearly, these extreme ideologists don’t care about nourishing people with affordable, abundant and safe foods like meat, dairy and eggs. These foods are rich in protein and other essential nutrients, but if our nation’s politicians had their way, ranchers would be regulated out of business, sin taxes would be slapped on these products and ultimately, a plant-based diet would become the only way to eat in America as mandated by Congress.

Related:How vegans got it wrong on cattle & climate change

de Blasio’s announcement has nothing to do with sustainability or saving the planet. He’s looking for headlines and political clout. It’s cheap and unsubstantiated, but it makes for good press.

Frankly, I’ll keep talking about cattle and climate change until I’m blue in the face because the alternative is letting these goons continue to degrade our industry’s reputation and use it as a political punching bag for their own personal gains.

The opinions of Amanda Radke are not necessarily those of beefmagazine.com or Farm Progress.