Hi,

My name is Jürgen and I’m living in Belgium, a small European country. When I learned about OrganicAthlete, I decided to become a member immediately. Being a member may be nice, but after some time it gets quite boring, especially if there are no activities in your neighbourhood. Travelling to the States for every OA activity is not an option, so it’s time to let Europe know OrganicAthlete exists! We definitely need more OA members to meet together!

I work as a volunteer for EVA vzw (Ethical Vegetarian Alternative) and there we decided to do something with vegetarianism and sports. In name of this Belgian vegetarian organization, I organized a lecture on plant-based sport nutrition on 19 April in Brussels. As Christine Vardaros lives in Belgium and is a succesful professional athlete, she is the ideal person to talk about plant-based sports nutrition.

Christine proved to be an eloquent speaker, with an enormous baggage on plant-based sports nutrition. All of the participants agreed that this lecture was a splendid activity. Christine proved that you don’t need meat, dairy, etcetera, to perform at your best. She refuted the following myths:

- You can’t perform well on a vegan diet
- A vegan diet is complicated
- It’s hard to maintain while living in Belgium, travelling, eating at restaurants
- You can’t possibly get enough protein and other nutrients

Many things Christine talked about, were very recognizable for the participants. But how do you reply when asked where you get your protein or when told you won’t get enough iron? Many veg(etari)an athletes don’t dispose of the right information, so it proves to be hard to counter false statements or myths.

People need to be (re-)educated on proper plant-based whole food nutrition. In that sense, lectures such as this one are very interesting and useful. It was one of the first real activitis of EVA that had a connection with sports. It was a modest start, now the train needs to be kept going. Soon the OA Guide to Sports Nutrition will be available in Dutch!

To be continued, stay tuned!

Cheerz from Belgium.