The John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health is running a campaign called Meatless Mondays. The campaign encourages everyone to replace one day of meat eating with one day of vegetarian meals and by doing so we can help prevent heart disease, stroke, diabetes and cancer.

However, Meatless Mondays has an additional benefit by reducing the stresses on the planet caused by large scale livestock production.  Meat production has detrimental impacts on the planet that result in accelerated soil erosion, diversion of grain for livestock and the use of massive amounts of water and energy in meat processing. 

In honor of Meatless Mondays, here is a delicious soup recipe from Moosewood, a vegetarian restaurant in Ithaca, New York. Moosewood started in the 1970's when vegetarianism was strictly for the hippy fringe. So they have been around long enough to have perfected some of the best vegetarian recipes around. I have one of their cookbooks and can vouch for the delicious results.

We plan to feature other recipes in the coming weeks as part of the Meatless Monday campaign, so check back for another recipe of the week next Monday.  Personal health and planet health are a match we can all benefit from.