All for the sake of animal welfare, or so it seems to be nowadays.
For every subspecies that mother nature has gifted our world with, we Dutchies have an action group that strive for the common welfare of the animal in question.

Ducks, chicken, sheep, cows, rabbits; all have certain groups favoring the quality of life of the animals, and on top of that we have several environmentalist groups striving to diminish animal-suffering and consumption of meat.
We know GroenFront!, Partij van de Dieren, and the one I’m discussing here: NVB. The Dutch Society for Vegetarians.

I know, they’re not particularly an animal-rights group judging by their name, but recent plans to make a vegetarian day obligatory in the lunch-halls of governmental organizations suggests otherwise.
Yes, you read it well: the NVB suggests all canteens of governmental institutions (including schools and such) should not serve meat on one day in the week, preferably on Friday.
The reasoning: "We’ll save 40.000 animals’ lives, and it’s good for the environment!".

The thing is: already, about 90% of all concerned canteens are serving vegetarian meals, about half of those do that all days of the week, all year round. About 5 to 10 percent of all meals served is vegetarian; which would forcefully be increased to about 20% when this plan is executed.
Why do organizations think making something obligatory solves the issue, when the relationship between the effect and measure is not unmistakingly proven? Meat is not neccessarily bad for our environment: overconsumption of meat is. Like anyting that is not used sensibly. Apparently, the NVB thinks they can save the lives of about 40.000 animals by merely changing the destination for their meat.
A large quantity of the Dutch meat is exported because of it’s excellent quality, and thus any meat that is designated for the Dutch market, yet remains unconsumed is just sold to someone else.
It could wind up as food for other animals, or even be processed in other, miscellaneous, food-products.

NVB: start thinking please.
I happen to know reddish meat contains a lot of proteïnes which are good for your blood and thus for the brain…