Bok Ponders 'Meatless' Days In Response to Mayer's Plan

President Bok said yesterday he has asked his staff to research the possibility of meatless days at Harvard, in response to a proposal made by Dr. Jean Mayer, professor of Nutrition.

Dr. Eleanor Shore, assistant to the President, has also begun a study to evaluate the nutritional and health value of the food served here, Bok said.

Mayer said yesterday that Harvard should institute as many as two meatless days a week with the savings to the University going to world food relief. "If we cut down our meat consumption, the effect on our pocketbook, the effect on our heart and the effect on our conscience would all be good," he said.

Mayer, also master of Dudley House, said he will discuss the plan at the December CHUL meeting since he feels students should be the initiators of such a program.

Yale University has already instituted one meatless day a week at the request of its student body, with the savings designated for food relief.

Bok said if funds saved through meatless days could be channeled into food relief by Yale, that there was no reason why it wouldn't work here. But "you cannot impose that kind of morality" on students unless it is clear that they are in full support of the program, he said.

In a list of recommendations released yesterday, Mayer suggested that all Americans conform to a "two-meatless-days-a-week" schedule. Mayer also criticized the progress of the World Food Conference in Rome, saying the United States should put pressure on the Soviet Union and the "new rich" OPEC countries to contribute major help to world food relief.

Mayer called for the oil-producing nations to "make a special effort to help fellow Moslem countries--Bangladesh, Pakistan and Indonesia," and said the Soviet Union should disclose its grain reserves.

He called on the United States to "attempt to persuade the developing nations to do more for themselves, by channeling more of their resources into agriculture and giving a higher priority to birth control programs."

Mayer also suggested that Americans cut their consumption of alcohol, estimating that the grain used to produce the hard liquor consumed annually by Americans could feed 20 to 30 million people.