JN: You are a devoted vegan. Why is this lifestyle so attractive to you, and does it ever become difficult to manage while traveling for races?
CV: I have been vegetarian for about twenty years and vegan about ten. I became vegetarian on a whim. But then I became vegan through an educated decision to improve my health. I used to suffer badly from allergies and asthma, but getting off milk products really helped a lot. Since then I have learned a lot about the moral ramifications of eating animals which keeps me strict about my diet. Sometimes it’s tough to travel, especially when I raced in France for a French team where nobody spoke English. Trying to explain that you don’t want butter on your pasta was sometimes impossible. I ended up eating only French bread at some meals but I survived just fine.
My vegan diet is pretty simple – I eat foods that are found at any generic supermarket, no funny foods. So when I am traveling on my own or just with Jonas for a cross race, I usually don’t have a problem. And Jonas speaks French so we are covered there too.
JN: You are a spokesperson for Organic Athlete. What does this group represent, and why have you chosen to lend yourself to its cause?
CV: They are a group of athletes who promote a vegan diet for sports. They spread the word that a plant-based diet is not only healthful but ideal for those who want to get the most out of their bodies. I easily agree with them. On a vegan diet, I notice that I recover after races or hard rides a lot easier, I am rarely sick, and have lots more energy.
I am also a spokesperson for In Defense of Animals, an international animal rights organization that protects the rights of all animals from your cat to elephants.
JN: In February, you spoke at the ECOPOP fair. What was this experience like?
CV: That was something strange. I was there to talk about the ecological impact of a person’s diet. As a vegan diet has the smallest ecological footprint, I assumed that everyone would know my talk would be about a plant-based diet. But after looking around the fair at the fur and leather-wearing participants , I quickly realized that maybe they were looking for a talk about organic meats and milk. So I tried to edit my talk as I went along to make it a little more general while holding true to my beliefs which turned out to be a disaster. I ended up just sounding a little scattered. Oops. Only later did I find out that half of the audience came there to hear me talk about veganism.