It has been a couple days since I returned from the Natural Products Expo West and I still haven’t come down from the excitement. What a great day! Met lots of good people that are out there making the good gluten free foods we enjoy.I was there to meet the gluten free community, but there are sections serving every nook and cranny of the natural product industry. It is housed in the Anaheim Convention Center covering 5 halls.
I knew I was in for a great day when I came across this booth shortly after entering the convention center.
The Lesser Evil Brand Snack was not only a good product, but was also the most entertaining booth of the day. I had a nice conversation with Bill from Lesser Evil about their snack products. I really enjoyed the Classic Sea Salt Krinkle Sticks.
As someone with only a few months in the world of celiacs. There are some products that I’ve gravitated to because of their availability in our local Whole Foods. Brands like Glutino, Ian’s, and Amy’s were all in attendance. I had a nice chat with Clair from Ian’s about their two new products while enjoying some samples. The Mac and Non-Cheese and the Pasta with Meat Sauce were deicious and are sure to be big hits. I know our little guy, Aiden, will love them. Ian’s was sharing space with Glutino and I was able to sample some new pretzels from them. Folks, Glutino pretzels are the best pretzels in the world whether you are talking traditional preparation or not. Mrs Gluten Free and I will be receiving some samples in the weeks to come and you can expect a full review in the future.
After a brief stop in the Amy’s booth it was on to the most anticipated booth of the day for me. Our family has become very healthy since going gluten free and we enthusiastically embrace our new lifestyle, but we aren’t dead. We still love the occasional desert every now and again. The one gluten free desert maker that showed us that things were going to be OK was Pamela’s Products. I headed over there to see if there was a real Pamela. Guess what folks? There is indeed a real Pamela and she is the nicest lady!! I had a really great conversation with her. As Mrs. Gluten Free wrote about a couple days ago, Pamela sent me home with some cake from their anniversary cake and some new product for us to enjoy and review. I spoke with Pamela about putting an interview down on tape and she was excited about doing an interview for the podcast (that’s right folks, a podcast is coming). Here are some pics from her booth.
One of the big motivators for heading down to the show was to discover and talk with other, smaller gluten free food makers. Well, I consider that objective completed. One company that stood out was PatsyPie. I spoke with Pat Libling (Patsy Pie) and her husband out of Montreal, Canada. Pat along with her daughters have celiacs and they have been making gluten free cookies, biscotti, and brownies since the early 90’s. I only got to sample of their cookies and it was good. We hope to get some more product from them in the future for a more in depth review.I don’t know if this has been revealed yet, but I had a chance to speak with Rishi from Larabar and found out that they have a new children-targeted line of bars coming out. If you’ve never had a Larabar before you need to run out and get yourself two or three. We get ours at Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s. Go ahead, I’ll wait………… see, aren’t they delicious. They are always such a test for me because I could sit and eat two or three at once.
Pizza dough is one thing we have yet to try and make. So far we have done the frozen pizza thing which is tough since we were big pizza fans. Not the big chain places, but the smaller family run pizzerias were the places we would order from. Now that we are settling into the lifestyle we feel ready to make our pies from scratch. I spoke with Cassidy from Bob’s Red Mill about getting some review products and one of those is going to be their pizza dough mix. Cassidy, like all the people I spoke with on Saturday, was really sweet and made the day one that I would deem a colossal success. I’m already planning next years trip.As I left, I snapped one last picture with my iPhone.
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