GIVE PEAS A CHANCE.

This Earth Day, actor and musician David Soul (you know, of Starsky and Hutch fame) calls on those within earshot to take the Meatless Monday pledge and to “eat your veggies! And lots of fruit, too,” he adds with a laugh.

David joins the growing list of health experts, entertainers, authors, and others in promoting Meatless Monday, a pledge in which participants agree not to eat meat one day a week.

Meatless Monday began in 2003, launched in association with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. In May 2009, Ghent, Belgium, became the first non-U.S. city to go meatless. Shortly thereafter, Paul McCartney introduced the U.K. to Meat-Free Mondays. Meatless Monday is now active in 36 countries — and growing — because every nation can bring its unique culture, customs, and cuisine to the table in meat-free and vegetarian dishes.

Going meatless reduces heart disease and stroke, limits cancer risks, fights diabetes, curbs obesity, improves the nutritional quality of your diet, and enables you to live longer. Meatless diets also minimize water usage, reduce greenhouse gases, curb fuel dependence, and alleviate untold suffering on hundreds of millions, if not billions, of animals.

“We can only do so much to stop the dog meat trade,” David notes. “And stop it we must. But every day, with every meal we consume, we have the opportunity to reduce suffering in animals of like sensitivities. What Asia does illegally and unethically to dogs, we do just as unethically, but legally, in Western cultures, to pigs, chickens, and cattle.”

By going meatless one day a week, each person significantly reduces their carbon footprint and promotes a kinder world.

“Do it,” David says, “for the animals, for your health, for the planet. And, of course,” he adds with a shy grin, “do it for your soul.”

To learn more about Meatless Monday and to take the pledge, please click here.