The Natural Living Expo came to Sturbridge, MA for the weekend of Sept 25-26, 2010. It is New England's largest holistic event with a huge variety of exhibitors/vendors, speakers, and cooking demos covering aspects of healthy mind, body spiritual, and green living.
I headed down Route 20 West to spend the weekend at the Natural Living Expo. There were so many exhibitors there I found interesting but I'll just mention a few of the veg-oriented ones I checked out that relate to this blog. So, firstly I stopped by to visit
Sproutman and buy a sprouting chart. Then I checked out the
Hippocrates Health Institute exhibitors juicing up wheatgrass. One guy took a sip and was like "Yup, tastes like grass." Haha. I grabbed a freekin huge bag of samples from
Go Mambo (Healthy and Natural Samples On The Move,) munched on some free vegan granola bars, and then washed it down with a sample of
Mona Vie Superfruit Juice. I talked with the women of
Revitalive Health & Wellness and
Revitalive Cafe (Newburyport, MA) about raw & vegan foods and it reminded me of how damn anxious I am to visit the cafe! I wish I had money to do a retreat at one of many health centers promoting.. Tons of yoga & meditation retreats, etc. Well, I had my own mini sensory retreat by sniffing all the amazing soaps from
Sunny Window. Nancy of Sunny Window is from Southborough, MA but brings back French Lavender and also other ingredients from all over the world. I ended up buying the vegan
African Black soap with Oats & Aloe because it just smelled sooo good.
Green Hair Co. (538 Main St. Sturbridge, MA) was there selling organic, vegan shampoos & conditioners and promoting their new local salon where they use all of the organic products. Some other exhibitors I visited were
The Peace Abbey (cruelty-free multi-faith retreat center,)
Mass Audubon (nature & wildlife conservation),
Science Of Spirituality (vegetarian spiritual organization), and
Leap Organics (natural vegan soaps.) I can't forget the complimentary Reiki session I had by Kelly and Ann
(from Heart Of Reiki) at the
Care Alternatives table. They were so kind and amazing - definitely one of the highlights of the weekend.
For my veg lunch at the Expo food court I had a vegetable wrap from The Publick House (Sturbridge, MA) with zucchini, summer squash, red & green peppers, asparagus and eggplant with olive oil. For my expo food court dinner I had some Loving Hut (Chandler St. Worcester) fried tofu with plum sauce. Instead of plastic forks & spoons at the expo food court, there was
Vegware, natural starch cutlery which I found interesting. The food court area was set up right next to the cooking demos so it caught the interest of many who were eating lunch.
The cooking demos were inventive but easy to understand.
Karen Masterson of Nourish Restaurant in Lexington, MA (and formerly of Big Fresh Café in Framingham) was making all kinds of delicious healthy eats on Saturday. Karen pointed out that she is frustrated with the rockstar chefs and raw "guru" types that seem to get so much publicity, when really anyone can be a star in their own kitchen with just a few ingredients. I enjoyed the 11am demo "Seasonal Salads and Easy, Fast Make-in-the-Bowl Dressing" where she made two easy salads with just a few vegan ingredients. The audience got to taste both salads and choose which add-ons they wanted such as garbanzo beans, avocado, cranberries or hemp seeds. It mirrored a lot of the salads I make at home and its just sooo easy to make something a little more fun than the typical garden salad. Sunday's cooking demo was
Kripalu's Adrian Bennett making raw vegan dishes all day such as green smoothies, spring rolls, sweets and thai dishes!
The speakers were one of the highlights for many people at the Expo. I watched 4 or 5 of the workshops/speakers but the keynote speaker I found most interesting was Brenda Cobb. I didn't end up watching her Saturday presentation because I'm already familiar with her story and her work, and although most all of the presentations were free, there were a few longer more involved sessions that cost extra to attend and hers was one of those. She spoke on both days and had a table set up with information about
The Living Foods Institute. Cobb survived and healed from breast and cervical cancer without medicine or chemo, through eating a diet of vegan, raw and living foods. She has since authored nine books and shares her message about reversing aging, detoxification and healing from disease.
I even saw her on the morning news recently talking about raw food. The Living Foods Institute is doing amazing work. Its reminds me much of what the Gerson Institute is doing for people with cancer.
I like chips, fries and soda as much as the next person and I eat a lot of processed and soy-based vegetarian products too, but I think its good to be aware of how these processed foods are contributing to bad health. That aside, the standard American diet is trash!!! Hence its nickname, S.A.D. People with these horrible diseases need to start becoming aware of how the junk they're eating is contributing to their cancer. Instead of buying dairy products, gums and candies with a pink ribbon on them to give money towards harsh medical treatments, start promoting raw living foods... just a thought.
Although the expo (sponsored by
Spirit Of Change magazine) had many groups geared toward alternative avenues of spiritual living and health (psychic readings, astrology, angels, crystals, yoga & massage, etc.) there was a lot of organic and veg-talk going on. Some people are into going vegetarian/vegan for the animals, but there is definitely a growth in those who are interested solely for the benefits they're seeing from going organic and cutting out the amount of meat and dairy they consume.
The Natural Health Expo in Sturbridge is an annual event and will return in the fall of 2011.
