VegFest Seattle 2010

Seattle's annual VegFest was held last weekend, and naturally, my Sprouts and I had to make our yearly pilgrimage to test, taste, sample and learn about all the new products being marketed at vegans, vegetarians and those interested in healthy living...


We even brought a van-load of (fairly willing and curious) friends, and while they aren't vegetarian, they still enjoyed the experience and came away with loaded goody bags and full tummies and (hopefully) some new ideas.


As a VegFest veteran, I've watched food and marketing trends come and go, (one year there were 42 hummus samples available!) but this year, my one-sentence assessment of VegFest would have to be: "Too many energy-drinks!" Wow.
I enjoy an occasional green-smoothie or meal replacement shake... but I prefer to make my own, out of fresh, raw fruits and veggies, thank you - without a two-paragraph list of ingredients and the ultra-spendy cost-per-drink that comes with the little nutrition-filled packets of whatever they were selling. I'm sure they appeal to someone. Just not me.


Nevertheless, there was plenty of other good veggie-feasting going on: burgers, dogs, dips, sauces, chips, dressings, tofu, breads (stay tuned for a BREAD-filled blog post soon) as well as our family's two long-time favorites: the good people at Field Roast and Dave's Killer Bread.

Through a FaceBook Fan Page promotion, my kids (AND their friends) read about Dave's Secret Password and they all scored awesome tee-shirts AND a picture with Dave himself, which TOTALLY made their day.

Let me tell you, this was a brilliant PR idea, as the kids are now wearing the shirts EVERYWHERE and insisting that their friends MUST try Dave's bread and furthermore, "...promise you'll ONLY eat Dave's bread from now on, because the stuff rocks and so does Dave and ALL the cool people eat it - duh!..." (their quote, not mine). It is good stuff indeed.

Field Roast was showcasing their "meatloaf" and had samples crumbled and seasoned into a "taco-meat" which was amazing (and the l-o-n-g lines can attest to!). Rumor has it (read their blog) they did sliders and sloppy joes earlier in the weekend, those would have been yummy too!
With the entourage of restless and wandering teenagers, (and I apologise to the Lara-Bar people, apparently some of us *ahem* may not have listened to the very stern and strict vendors at your booth and *may* have have come away with more than just "one" teeny tiny sample...) we didn't pause long enough to catch the speakers or presentations, though they had some good ones, as always; As a side note of trivia, one of the presenters, Dr. Helmuth Fritz, is a good friend of my parents, so it was cool to see him there.

I also ran into a lot of people I knew from work, church, FaceBook, Twitter, fellow blogger-friends (like the creative minds behind the Soundly Vegan blog - they spent the day volunteering there!) as well as quite a few readers who randomly recognized me from this blog. (*waves*).

It was a fun day for everyone, vegetarians, vegans and otherwise. It was great to see ALL of you, and if you're in the Seattle area next Spring, by all means consider checking out this fun festival of all things vegie-licious!