The Ethical Eating Club at Iowa State is all about making healthy and ethical choices when it comes to food. Students who follow vegan or vegetarian diets make up the majority of the club, a place where like-minded people can discuss vegan and vegetarian lifestyles and ethical practices when it comes to food.

For Mallory Schatz, the president of the club, the club serves as a way to connect with other people who share the same ideas.

“A lot of people are vegetarian by religion and some people just share the same values, so it’s good to have a place…where you can be friendly with people who just have the same perspective as you,” Schatz said.

That place turns out to be a classroom in Sweeney Hall, where the club meets every other week to discuss vegan and vegetarian lifestyles, watch documentaries or try out new food recipes.

Club treasurer Sara Smith explained the beliefs of vegans and vegetarians vary based on how committed they are to the lifestyle, but all follow some of the same basic principles.

“Vegetarianism stays away from animal flesh and veganism stays away from all products that are animal flesh or derived from animals,” said Smith.

For vegans, items such as honey, leather goods and even flu shots could be considered unethical.

The club started over four years ago and has grown into a small community of people who encourage each other to keep up their lifestyles.

For many in the club, the choice to go vegan or vegetarian is not without its challenges. When Sela Hanson decided to go vegan last year, she found it hard to maintain her new lifestyle while living on campus.

“At first, it was difficult because I was living in the dorms and I only had Storms as a dining hall, so they didn’t have a lot of options,” Hanson said.

Even grabbing a quick snack or cup of coffee can provide a challenge for those following vegan and vegetarian lifestyles.

“When I go out to restaurants or get a coffee at Caribou and I ask to get a different milk substitution or something with no cheese, people don’t always register that or they won’t write it down so it will come back with that stuff in it and it’s really hard,” Smith said.

However, talking to people about being vegan or vegetarian can often be a touchy subject.

“There’s a stereotype about vegans always telling people that they are vegan in the first five seconds of meeting them,” Smith said. “I really don’t want to perpetuate that stereotype, but at the same time I don’t want to keep causing harm by not letting people know that I don’t want those things in my food.”

For other members, the conversation comes from a place of understanding the experiences of others and using their personal experiences to educate.

“I try to go into it with a mindset that I used to have before I went vegan — I was an extreme meat eater,” Hanson said. “So I try to talk to people with that mindset and just try to talk to them as if I was talking to my old self.”

Since Hanson joined the club earlier in the semester, she has been looking forward to doing more activism in order increase awareness about ethical eating.

“I think that it’s an important message to spread,” Hanson said.

While the Ethical Eating Club hasn’t done a lot of activism the past few semesters, this is something that Schatz wants to change.

“When I joined, that’s what was attractive to me but we haven’t done anything and that’s why I wanted to step up and be president,” Schatz said.

The club is currently planning on doing city-wide activism, rather than just focusing on Iowa State, something that is appealing to many members of the club. For now, the club is focusing on making personal impacts among friends and smaller social groups.

“It would be awesome to watch the club grow because I know that there probably aren’t a lot of vegans and vegetarians at Iowa State,” Hanson said. “So just to see those numbers grow just shows that the message is getting out there and people are really paying attention now…and that’s exciting to me.”