Farmers Protest Meat-Free School Day With Burgers

The "Meatless Monday" trend is still going strong in some quarters. Marketing the health and environmental benefits of not eating meat on occasion has been going so well in Sweden that some schools have even embraced the trend of observing one meat-free day a week, but some farmers are not pleased with the trend.

According to The Local, to protest the fact that a school in Nyköoping, in central Sweden, is not serving meat on Wednesdays, a Swedish farmers association has decided to camp out in protest in front of the school, cooking and distributing hamburgers to passing students as though it were a giant tailgate party.

"We think the municipality is doing this for the wrong reason," said Karin Andersson, chair of the Swedish farmers association in Nyköoping, of the school's decision to eschew meat on Wednesdays. "It sends out the wrong signals that it's not good to eat meat, and we feel accused."

Andersson says that handing out free hamburgers is meant to "stir debate" amongst the schoolchildren about the Swedish meat industry and the jobs it creates.