The Santa Rosa Raw Health Expo

This past weekend I was at the 1st annual Santa Rosa Raw Health Expo. It was a great event and even more impressive was that it was its very first year. About 400 people attended and some really great speakers showed up including: Paul Nison, Victoria Boutenko, Nomi Shannon, Cherie Soria, and Kevin and Anne Marie Gianni. There were about 29 speakers in total including myself! I did a smoothie and juice demo and talked about, “How to Transition to Raw Foods with Ease and Grace” My talk was well attended and I got a lot of good feedback. I’m pretty pleased considering I was running on very little sleep. The week before the event I was putting the event program together and busy marketing the event online and in my local community. This expo was maybe only the fourth raw food event where I manned my booth the whole time, so the week before, I was putting together everything I needed for my talk, food demo, and booth, hence the sleep deprivation. During the event I was the official MC and got to announce which speakers were speaking every hour on the hour. When I wasn’t doing that, I was having fun talking to people at my booth, so much so, that at the end of the event I lost my voice!

My friend John Kohler, of 8 years, was the organizer behind the event, hence how I got involved in doing some of the behind the scenes work. I knew it had always been a dream of his to put on a large raw food event, and it hit me during the opening ceremonies that this was the realization of his long time dream; I broke out in tears during my introduction speech and I looked over at him and he was in tears too! I guess you could say we’re both pretty passionate about the healing power of living and raw foods, and sharing it with people is really special.

Some of the highlights of the event:

• During cleanup I overheard John talking to one of the clean up crew from the event venue about the healing power of raw foods. It was after the event and I knew that, being the organizer and giving three talks on the same day, that John must’ve been exhausted, but he still had the time and energy to talk to this guy. The garbage man definitely seemed interested, or at the very least, intrigued.
• A highlight for me was getting to know some of the fellow people in the raw food movement a little better. Paul Nison is hilarious, Kevin Gianni is a super nice and humble guy, and I’ve always though the world of Nomi Shannon, she has that east coast vibe and personality I like.
• I bought these cool chewable chlorella tablets from Paul Nison. I like the taste of them and, as I pleasantly discovered, so does my dog, I feed them to her as a treat!
• Someone from the Violiv violet glass products booth gifted me this really cool violet glass container for my smoothie. According to Violiv,  it’s an ancient Egyptian technology that is used to store light degradable foods, water, herbs, oils, and seeds. The glass blocks visible light but allows in beneficial violet and infrared rays. Supposedly you can leave a cherry tomato in one for 7 months and it will come out looking fresh. I’m excited about the possibilities. I think they would be great for nuts, seeds, and if you make your own oils, this would keep them from going rancid. I’m excited to experiment with my new violet glass container. Click here for more information.
• I stocked up on all different types of seaweed from my favorite seaweed company: http://www.ohsv.net,  Including silky sea palm, nori, wakame, sweet kombu, and bull whip kelp. Yum!
• There were a few people that approached me and told me they liked my website and even one woman wanted to take a picture of me. I was so honored. One lady was like, you’re getting married soon right? I was surprised that someone that I didn’t know read my journal! I really have no concept of that.
• It was awesome just talking to people all day. It was great to see just how many people showed up for the event. We did get many local Sonoma County people but we also got people from all over the Bay Area. San Francisco, San Jose, Oakland, and some from outside of the Bay Area like Lodi and Sacramento. I know the raw food movement in the S.F. Bay Area isn’t as big as in Southern California but it’s definitely alive and kicking and growing everyday. I’m so happy to be part of it:)

The event was such a success that it is definitely going to happen again next year, so mark your calendars for July 24-25 2010. http://www.rawhealthexpo.com

Click here for some pictures I took during the event, enjoy!

Click here for some amazing pictures that a professional raw photographer took during the event.

♥,
C

Question of the Day:
Did you go to the Santa Rosa Raw Health Expo? What were some of your favorite moments?