Signs of Spring=Food Expo

Every year in early March, I look forward to the Natural Food Expo in Anaheim, California. I started attending this event annually when my son Phil's food company, Evol Foods,began attending trade shows, about 5 years ago. Not only does the food show give me a chance to see Phil, Deborah, and Lennon, but it gives me a chance to do one of my favorite things, talk about and eat food. The Anaheim Natural Food Expo is the largest in the country, with thousands of exhibitors, and I think I saw all of them this year. I walked the show for two days, accumulating samples and information on a enormous variety of products. Over the next few weeks I will blog about many of the products and give you an idea of food trends. Here goes.

Snack foods are bigger and more plentiful than ever. Crackers of every conceivable type were in attendance. Gluten free is still the "in" thing, and many cookies, crackers and breads were gluten free. I can still say I haven't tasted a gluten free cookie or bread that I would consider buying. In my opinion, they just don't taste very good. One product I liked very much was Maria and Ricardos. They make tortillas and wraps of various kinds. Gluten free and sprouted grain wraps were both good, but the whole wheat tortillas were especially delicious. They're available at Whole Foods. Another snack food item that I absolutely loved was Popcorn Indiana. Black and white, carmel,and cinnamon sugar popcorn flavors were all declicious. Their products (they also make several varieties of crackers) are available at Whole Foods, Costco, and Ralphs. They're worth checking out. An interesting cracker that I really liked was by CrsipRoot. The chips are made from cassava root. They're crispy like a potato chip and nice and salty. You can find they at Whole Foods, Sprouts, and Jimbos. An interesting, but not so great tasting product was called Kims Magic Pop. It's a puffed disc, about the size of a CD, that they very dramatically demonstrate at the show. About every 10 seconds a machine emits a loud "pop", and out comes one of the discs. The taste is similar to rice cakes, but not as crunchy. They are sold in many natural food stores. There were so many crackers and chips I would not even begin to mention them. Suffice it to say, the new twist is using things like flax seed, beans and other unusual grains like kamut, in the crackers. One company I did like was Suzies. They use kamut, spelt and other whole grains to make puffed cakes, flat bread and crackers.

Another very popular snack food item is freeze dried and dried fruits and vegetables. We've hadd dried apples, pears, bananas and the like for a long time, but several companies have added a new twist. Danielle is a company that produces crispy fruit and vegetable chips. Flavors like pumpkin, banana, pineapple, carrot, okra and sweet potato are included in their line of products, in addition to the more typical apple, pear and mango. They're crispy and salty like chips. My favorite was sweet potato. Good but not great. Ecofruits makes freeze dried fruit, using fruits you don't normally associate with freeze dried products. Raspberries, grapes and blueberries were just some of the fruits they freeze dry and package. O'Jeju, a Korean manufacturer, makes dried mandarin oranges. They flavor them with either kim chee or chilis. Very spicy, and not so good.

These are just a few of the many snack foods that I sampled in Anaheim. Look for more blogs where I will talk about yogurt, seaweed, tea, hot and cold drinks, ethnic foods, and frozen prepared foods, a popourri of items that don't fit in any category. I went home on Saturday so full I couldn't think about food until the next day.