Natural Expo West

Ahhhhh... I'm back, for those of you who don't know, I have just returned form the biggest natural food orgy in the world.

I'm talking 52,000 retailers, manufacturers and industry experts in the health food industry, all together under one roof at the Anaheim Convention Centre in California. I have to describe my first hour as a boot camp training exercise, within 45 minutes I had eaten organic meats, organic beer, energy bars stuffed with combinations of acai, goji berry and organic palm sugar and 16 different organic health tonics. I survived being sprayed with aura balancing flower essence and tried not to look embarrassed when handed my organic tampon samples. After trying 24 different varieties of gluten free organic tapenades, corn chips and herbal colon cleaners, I realised I was still only in aisle 1. By lunch-time I was feeling decidedly ill and my pants were tight, can you over-dose on health supplements? It must have been the probiotics, or was it the organic gluten free pet food?

All in all the Trade-show was a great eye opener, it's good to see what the latest fads are... Gluten Free is big this year, and berries from far off places will always be popular. It's good to see organics going more main stream, but organic fried pretzels?? One drink I sampled contained 40 grams of sugar (organic sugar of course). The high-light would be the key-note speaker - Michael Pollan author of 'The Omnivores Dilemma.' you must read it, its a great book for anyone interested in what's happening globally to our food chain. The second high-light was Disneyland, where I could buy fruit, salad, fresh pineapple and a lot of non-organic but real, tasty good-for-you food, once I had recovered from all the functional food.