How it all began with a European cliche about living abroad: a blog about me, a new adventure and a lot of beetroot.

Nasvidenje Ljubljana!-Ciao Venezia!-¡Hola Barcelona!

It all started on one rainy day in April 2018, when I was close to finishing my Msc Thesis and at the same time starting work as a student. This was my first full-time job. Like at every new beginning, adapting to every day's work was a certain challenge. I could say it was just the exactly right moment in time (at the point where I was feeling a little bit tired of everyday's routine) when I happened to come across a post in our students' group on Facebook about an opportunity to do a study-related internship abroad. You cannot ignore a post with the following title "Get a unique, professional, paid three-month internship and reveal your talent in the agri-food sector", right?

Since I had been planning to do Erasmus student exchange for a long time, but never did, it seemed like a good chance for me. Without pondering too much over the matter, I simply filled out the paper form and applied for the RIS fellowship EIT Food programme. After the three stage recruitment process 30 students from 13 different European countries were chosen and luckily I was one of them. One of the recruitment stages included participating in a workshop at the Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Slovenia. There we talked a lot about all the challenges that the Agri-food sector is facing. Also we took some mathematical and analytical tests. After that day I got the feeling that it was worth applying for the program, even though I wasn't going to be chosen for an internship, because the day had been very well spent.

At the beginning of August 2018, when I was enjoying windsurfing at the beautiful Croatian coast Pelješac, I got notified that I had been accepted for an internship in the Natural Machines company in Barcelona. You can imagine how surprised and excited I was. Especially since there were just 3 weeks left for windsurfing, finishing my master degree and of course for preparing everything in order to move to Barcelona.

And this is where my adventure abroad begins.

                                                                                          Charming Park Güell

Part of my awesome Spanish family (actually we are all from different countries, but currently living in Barcelona) :D 

I almost forgot about the beetroot in the tittle! Well, as many of you might known, I like to eat/drink any meal that consists of beetroot. That's why one of my last birthday gifts 2 years ago was a wooden crate full of fresh beetroot. :D 

The first reason why I like this vegetable is because in my childhood I "helped" my grandparents cook beetroot in a cauldron and it certainly was a great adventure. 

Secondly, as beetroot has a potential ergogenic effect on performance, I would like to do more research about it. I am especially interested in the reactions of nitric oxide with other components in the human body. But just like with every kind of food, eating beetroot can have both a positive and negative outcome and exceeding the amounts of consumed NO3, which can be found in large quantities in beets, could lead to negative effects on health. The formation of nitrosamines is also the topic that I'd love to find out more about. 

Finally, beetroot is very easy to purchase in Slovenia and may be a little bit overlooked in the field of food production. But let's wait and see what the future brings. 

That's it folks. Stay tuned.