The convenience of fast food is hard for a lot of students to pass by but the members of the University’s vegetarians club try to be more cautious about what they put in their bodies.
The club existed a few years ago and was recently started up again by Laura Dilley, club advisor, and Daniel Richardson, club president.
The group meets twice a month at Squeakers on Thursday at 6:30 p.m.
Dilley has resurrected the group to bring together people from the vegetarian community.
‘We want to serve as a forum for people in the BG community that are interested in learning about a healthy diet and nutritional recipes,’ Dilley said.
The group is not aiming to convert people to becoming vegetarians if they do not wish to be, according to Emily Harwell, club treasurer.
‘We aren’t promoting vegetarianism for all people, we want to inform people of animal rights issues associated with meat and we just want to have fun,’ Harwell said.
Richardson hopes to remove some of the negative stereotypes associated with the vegetarian lifestyle.
‘We realize that one cannot be forced to become vegetarian and we wouldn’t scold someone for eating meat because if they like it, then more power to them,’ Richardson said. ‘I think this is an important point to make, because vegetarians have been viewed as an extreme or elitist group that condemns people for not sharing in their belief that eating animals is wrong.’
Richardson has been a vegetarian for three years now; initially he was worried about telling his family about his decision because he grew up eating meat.
The switch to being a vegetarian was not difficult, he said.
‘My mother always taught me that there has to be a green vegetable, a yellow vegetable and a meat in every meal, but once I learned that wasn’t the case, the transition wasn’t hard,’ Richardson said. ‘For some people that mentality is ingrained so much that they have a lot of difficulty becoming vegetarian, or they aren’t aware of all the alternatives that don’t taste horrible because there are things that taste really bad like the Union’s vegan’s spot.’
Dilley is especially concerned with issues involving fast food chains and animal rights.
‘Major food corporations and fast food companies have a proven economic incentive to produce animals for mass consumption through modern farming techniques that would be considered felonies if they were carried out on dogs or cats,’ Dilley said.
Raising awareness on issues of animal rights and the environment are important to the group and they hope to have some discussion groups in the future on those issues.
When the group meets at Squeakers, they often trade recipes. Attendance at group events are usually between five and 10 people, but they hope to expand.
‘We want to spur more interest in vegetarian eating and issues, we are relatively small now because I think a lot of people aren’t aware that we are back,’ Dilley said.
For more information you can contact Laura Dilley at [email protected] or Daniel Richardson at [email protected].
