
photo by Andrew Coate
I’m not so sure why I am bothering to write so many words in a row about what I ate/saw/heard/smelled at the Natural Products Expo West this year, seeing as it seemed to me that all of you were there, too. Snapping Instapix and live-blogging your way down aisles 100-6500 (there were that many aisles this year!) like my friend The Insufferable Vegan. But, for the seven to ten of you that were stuck at home cause of your baby/snow/flu I’m gonna break it down so it’ll feel like you were there, also too.
Imagine the airport the day before Thanksgiving. A big airport like JFK or O’Hare. Instead of gates there are booths and instead of travelers trying to make their way home so they can binge eat in private, there are vegans trying to grab free samples, take pictures of said samples, and Instagram that picture while eating and walking to the next booth. Now spend an entire day or two or three eating something sweet then something salty then something sweet then something spicy then something gross then a beverage that is probably tea/coconut/chia/chunky/vitamin’d. Surround yourself with chips or chip like things made out of everything from peas to potatoes, chocolate, ice cream, meatless technologies, robo-cheese (do you like that term for vegan cheese? I just coined it.) and a lot of a lot of a lot of things.
Here are my top however many things I learned tasted or took away from NPEW ’13 in iTunes shuffle-style order:
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