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"I have been in many lunchrooms during lunch period and can attest to the food that is frequently lacking from a nutritional perspective and very high in saturated fats. … What our bill will do is provide some lower-fat and lower-cholesterol ways for kids to get the nutrition that they need to be healthy." —U.S. Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.) on the Healthy School Meals Act, which would start a $4 million pilot program to incorporate vegetarian food and drinks into school districts' lunch programs over a two-year period.

We'll cheer for that! Considering that vegetarian diets have been proven to curb childhood obesity, which remains a crisis in the U.S., Polis's proposed legislation would save kids and animals.

Many schools across the nation have already successfully adopted humane menus. Encourage your local schools to do the same.

Written by Logan Scherer

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As if we needed another reminder that wild animals are not wind-up toys, a capuchin monkey reportedly being kept as a "service animal" by a man in Chesapeake, Virginia, bit the man so severely that he had to be hospitalized. A video that aired on a local news broadcast showed the monkey's cage and the floor surrounding it sprayed with the man's blood.

Dangerous attacks are just one of the many downsides to keeping primates as "pets" (remember Travis?) and/or using them for assistance or therapy. Monkeys who are trained for Helping Hands, an organization that provides monkeys to quadriplegics and other physically disabled people, are torn away from their mothers within days or weeks of birth—separations that are extremely traumatic for both mother and baby. Because monkeys are known to be prone to biting, some or all of the monkeys' teeth are usually pulled. (The Chesapeake man apparently did not obtain his monkey from Helping Hands, because the monkey's teeth appear to be intact.)

Capuchin monkeys are intelligent and highly social animals who naturally live in groups and spend most of their time in trees. In the jungles and forests where they belong, capuchins raise families and have intricate communication systems. They race through tree canopies with astonishing speed and accuracy. Because they are extremely active, messy, and destructive, captive capuchins often spend much of their time confined, alone, to cages—a far cry, both literally and figuratively, from their vibrant jungle homes.

No one can debate the tremendous challenges faced by disabled people, but forcing monkeys to bridge the gap is not the most humane—or the safest—answer. With so many people having lost their jobs during the economic downturn, it seems like it would make more sense to hire them as "helping hands" than to continue to force monkeys into a lifetime of servitude far from their families and natural habitats.

Written by Alisa Mullins

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Thanks to all the bad habits immigrating from north of the border, the childhood obesity epidemic in Mexico is growing quickly, and school lunches loaded with fattening meat and dairy products are largely to blame. Luckily, we know just how to help Mexican schools tackle this hefty issue: Meat-Free Mondays.

We sent a letter to Mexico's secretary of education, Alonso Lujambio Irazábal, asking that the government adopt Meat-Free Mondays in all public schools. Meat-eaters are nine times more likely to be obese than vegetarians are, and researchers have found that children as young as 3 years old can already begin to show signs of coronary heart disease. Vegan meals don't have any heart-clogging cholesterol and are some of the healthiest options for any cafeteria lunch line.

While we wait to hear back from Mexican officials, it's easy to get your local schools to adopt Meat-Free Mondays. To participate, schools simply need to commit to cutting out meat once a week. In return for their commitment, we'll honor any schools that sign up with a launch party, free materials, and a certificate.

Fit students, an exciting party, and delicious, healthy food—what more could a school ask for?

Written by Liz Graffeo

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Most of us are feeling the strain of the recession, but schools seem to be among the hardest hit. Teachers are left struggling to put together lesson plans and scrape up materials on a tight budget. Enter TeachKind, a humane-education resource for teachers, administrators, and librarians who want to help students become kinder, more compassionate individuals.

Now I may be a bit biased—I am the TeachKind coordinator, after all—but this is a program that no educator can afford to miss. Our TeachKind Web site offers free lesson plans and materials, including books, DVDs, videos, magazines, comic books, posters, stickers, and more. And as if that weren't enough, we offer step-by-step advice on how to combat issues involving cruelty to animals, and we have a new program that helps educators form effective animal rights groups at their schools.

I could go on about TeachKind for hours, but if you have any questions, e-mail us at Info@TeachKind.org. And if you know any teachers, be sure to tell them about TeachKind and encourage them to sign up for our Teacher's Network, which features new lesson plans, ideas for incorporating animal rights issues into the classroom, and information about exciting contests and giveaways.

Oh, and because you're probably wishing that you had become a teacher right about now, check out this video to get you through to 5 p.m.

Written by Liz Graffeo