Unknown to a fair amount of sports fans is the reality that many of their favorite athletes, both professional and non-professional, live vegetarian and vegan lifestyles. Most individuals would probably assume that in order to be a great athlete and obtain all the essential vitamins and nutrients, athletes would have to consume meat sources. If you’re not a vegetarian or vegan, it might be hard for you to think about how these caliber of athletes could still obtain protein and other essential vitamins and minerals.

However, after reading “Fueling the Vegetarian (Vegan) Athlete” by Joel Fuhrman and Deana M. Ferreri, I learned that athletes can in fact be vegetarian and vegan and still perform just as well as those that are omnivores.

“Fueling the Vegetarian (Vegan) Athlete” discusses a lot about what nutrients vegetarian and vegan athletes may be lacking. However, it then explains what foods contain these nutrients, so these athletes can consume foods to offset the nutrients they are lacking. For example, one nutrient that vegan athletes are typically lacking is calcium. Fuhrman and Ferreri recommend getting the calcium from plant rich foods like kale, tofu, kidney beans, and almonds.

Benefits to choosing a vegetarian and vegan diet for athletes are mentioned as well. Choosing a vegetarian diet is associated with many health benefits for athletes. Vegetarian diets can lower the risk of death from heart disease, low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol levels, blood pressure, rates of type 2 diabetes, body mass index, and rates of cancers.

Also processed foods and animal products consist of 90% of the traditional American diet. This number is shocking.

If everyone, not just athletes, lowered their consumption of these products slightly, then they could have better health outcomes like the vegetarian and vegan athletes.

In the article the American Dietetic Association (ADA) states that athletes that are on a vegetarian diet are nutritionally adequate. Vegan athletes show that without consuming animal byproducts, they can still be able to achieve high-level athletic performances. Some vegan athletes include former Kansas City Chiefs and Atlanta Falcons tight end Tony Gonzalez, Ironman triathlete Brendan Brazier, and Olympian track and field star Carl Lewis. However, the optimal diet for vegans has not yet been defined.

Further health benefits can be seen in offshoots of these diets, called nutritarian and flexitarian. Both of these terms are probably not known to many individuals.

A nutritarian is someone who “includes a large amount of high -macronutrient, unrefined plant food- based on vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, and beans.” Oddly enough, a flexitarian is someone who regularly follows a vegan diet, but occasionally consumes dairy, milk, meat, fowl, or fish.” A nutritarian also tries to avoid foods that are refined grains, sugars, sweeteners and those that contain added oils. Fuhrman and Ferreri think vegan athletes that choose to live a nutritarian diet have an even greater performance advantage.

Based on all the findings about vegetarian and vegan athletes, I think it’s safe to say that they preform just as well as their meat eating counterparts. Next time you work out, maybe try a vegetarian meal. If it works great for them, it might possibly work great for you. If that’s not your style, at least you can see it from their perspective for a day.