It’s no secret that the Canadian Health Food Association Show (CHFA) is my favourite weekend of the year – this is my third year covering my newest finds on my blog (2013 post, 2012 post). It’s like my version of Halloween – over two days. I look forward to trying out new things like the latest kombuchas, kelp and shirataki noodles, chocolate covered cacao beans, date syrup, and doing shots of raw avocado oil. By the way, these things that I just listed were a handful of my favourite things that I tried this year, and have pictures of many of them below.
Like at any health food store, you still need to ask questions, and read labels, since some companies define “healthy” very differently than I think healthy is. It was so nice to see so many more non-GMO certified products, but shocking to still see the amount of conventional sugar and corn ingredients in some products. Things like instant oatmeal for “healthy” breakfasts, in single-use disposable containers with 28 grams of conventional sugar shouldn’t really be there, in my opinion. But, thankfully in the 24 huge aisles there were copious amounts of truly healthy and delicious products, plus some less healthy, but still really good organic treats.
I’m sorry for the amount of pictures below that don’t have close-ups of the product, but instead are of my classic pose. I have inserted the website address for each product along with each picture. I’m also sorry for missing or excluding some products that I may have included in other posts, years past or just missed due to the delicious overwhelm of the weekend. I do focus on the organic products, and generally the nut-free ones too. There are MANY other great brands at the show, but the ones I have pictures of, were the ones I liked best, and that I want to have at home!
I also want to extend my sincere gratitude to all of the people over the course of the weekend who spent the time to talk and encourage me and help me explore more foods and more ideas. You will notice that I took pictures with many of the people at the booths – sometimes the owners, sometimes marketing people, and sometimes people who work for the distributor and it’s because they took their time to explain and promote the virtues of their products with me. It’s not often you can ask questions about the product and get answers directly from people who made it or know all about it, that’s part of what makes this weekend so great!
I hope you try many of the products below, and hope you’ll let me know if you agree with me on how good they are! Some may not be out on store shelves yet, but they will be soon!
