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| - First off, I am not a vegetarian. Furthest thing from it - but was interested to check it out and my partner in crime is vegetarian.
First off, there are tons of free food samples -- far far more than your typical food trade/industry convention. Samples and food were reasonably priced and we even got free food as some of the vendors were closing up shop for the night. Friendly friendly people.
So - I'm giving the lowest review for this festival -- 'typical carnivore', right? Well - I am aware that vegetarian/vegan food can be healthy but also delicious. And I really respect people that are trying to do better for themselves and the environment. I simply love food too much to be a vegetarian.
Despite the delicious food and the friendly people, a couple of things really irked me about the festival:
- presumption of 'healthy' - it stands to reason that most vegetarian food is pretty healthy. However, after sampling all the food and having a few dishes, I think I far exceeded my usual sodium intake. When you look at the nutritional information for some of the food - it makes up most of your recommended sodium intake for the day. There's nothing wrong with this -- however, it irks me when you sell your food as healthy when the sodium levels are comparable to fast food.
- kooks, kranks & superstitutions - obviously, vegetarians/vegans are a certain subculture and it makes sense for some non-food vendors to show up and hawk their wares. Selling t-shirts with pro-veggie slogans on them? Makes sense. PETA is handing out politicized and oversimplified stickers? Okay... not so cool, but I understand it. Seeing a lot of anti-GMO propaganda? Well - some of the information is correct - but it's very slanted and I would recommend consumers consult sources other than the organic food producers for their facts -- unfortunately, they typically resort to fear-mongering to sell their products.
But when I start seeing kooks selling health crystals, new age healing/medicine and other snake oil. That agitates me. I know the Venn overlap is huge between consumers of this trash and vegetarianism/vegans - but come on. My partner in crime was annoyed -- it just propels the stereotype that vegetarians/vegans are well-meaning but ill-informed hippies that are duped regularly. I was at a stand where a nice man was trying to sell me a $4000 water purification machine that was supposed to reduce my chances of cancer. SERIOUSLY - according to him, regular water gives us cancer.
I'm just asking the organizers to be a bit more selective before allowing slick salesman hawk their 'miracle tonics' with exaggerated health claims.
Nit picking points on an otherwise great free event with lots of delicious food.
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