The first society to be featured for the Week 5 theme of Cider is the Vegetarian Society (VEGSOC)! I got to have a chat with Fiona.

Fiona joined VEGSOC having recently turned vegetarian. She heard about the society from a friend and thought that they were a cool society with cheap feeds. After that, she decided to volunteer for the society before becoming a part of its executive.

VEGSOC has stalls where they sell vegetarian meals where she meets new people. They also hold end of year events where they talk about diet, animal welfare and other related issues. Their most recent events included a Movie and Dinner event and another dinner event trialling Thai food. The members all had a good time with good food!

“We have small weekly goals to spread the news of different diets, different ways to get your protein.”

She mentioned how her society wishes people would know how their behaviour affects animals and the environment. The society also tells people how they can be more considerate.

The one thing she loves about her society is being able to chat with people over a cheap lunch.

On misconceptions about the society, Fiona said that some people didn’t know that VEGSOC did a lot of vegan options and their foods were also vegan. She also said that anyone and everyone was welcome to join, regardless of their dietary requirements. VEGSOC is just good food without meat. One thing Fiona said was “bring your own container to reduce plastic!”.

Up until two years ago, Fiona was not a vegetarian but that changed when she was out eating with her family. She started to question whether having “an obscene” amount of meat was healthy. After some research, she started going down the path of pescetarianism which meant that she could eat seafood. She did this for around two years before she realised that the seafood industry wasn’t very sustainable. She made the switch to vegetarianism, and she hopes that she will be able to go vegan sometime soon.

Whilst the process of cutting meat out of your diet can be quite hard, Fiona said that for her personally it was quite easy. She admitted that she gets cravings once in a while but also says that there are many places that provide cheap, wholesome food to fill you up. She was also confident that she has a solid support foundation with her friends supporting and helping her along the way.

Her recommended food was deep fried potatoes! Anything with potatoes. “If you want to be more healthy maybe quinoa salad,” she said with a laugh.