This was my first visit to the Natural Products Show for years, so I braced myself for the usual long queues, security checks and interrogations – but I needn’t have worried as it was surprisingly easy to get in. They just scanned our tickets and the badges were printed out. In fact leaving proved far more difficult as you had to queue to hand the badges back! (Probably why there were so many people inside the show the whole time.)

Freebies First!

The first priority in any good food exhibition is to plan your freebies; so I did a brief scan round to see what was on offer. I promptly wished I’d eaten more breakfast, as they really have cut back on the free samples! I was expecting the usual bags full of chocolate, crisps and granola bars, instead everything was cut into tiny chunks.

Typical sample size

Demonstrations

There were some great demonstrations and workshops though. The first one I went to was Dale Pinnocks medicinal food demo.  This is a subject close to my heart, medicines and remedies are no replacement to the healing qualities of food. For instance garlic is probably the best known natural antibiotic, and ginger improves circulation and digestion. In fact most culinary herbs are therapeutic, for instance parsley is diuretic and cleans out your kidneys and fennel is carminative reducing bloating and gas.

Dale creates recipes that utilises the natural healing qualities of the ingredients, there’s an anti inflammatory curry which is great for your joints, and cholesterol lowering pate. Not many people realise that many of the best herbal medicines are also foods, and you can use them cheaply and effectively on a day-to-day basis. Did you know that hawthorn berries are a great tonic for your heart and can be made into a jelly or jam see link.

Goji Berries

Dale made a great sweet potato soup, including  garlic ginger and chilli. He also added Goji Berries which not only added a rich sweet flavour to the soup, but also increased the anti-oxidant benefits.

I then had the idea of using the free chocolate samples as croutons; it tasted great! (and we all know how good chocolate is for you.)

Medicinal Cooking

Although the food freebies were a bit stingy, things looked up when Dale dished out copies of his book which is really great.

Dale’s freebie book

The next demo was with Jason Vale the Juice Master.

The Juice Master in action

On the same theme, Jason the Juice Master, was highlighting the therapeutic value of juices. Basically a juicer does the digesting  for you extracting the juice, and all the nutrients in the food. Digestion uses a lot of energy that’s why after a heavy meal you feel really tired. In contrast juice is easily absorbed and it just hits you with high nutrition. Juicing nourishes, gives you loads of energy and detox’s too! See my blog ‘Keith’s Juicy Start to the Day’ for more info.

Juicing is a great way to have medicinal foods too. Garlic is much more effective raw, and a fresh vegetable juice with garlic, ginger and pinch of chilli would be a real boost to your immunity.

Jason also gave us all a copy of his book the great 7 day juice fast!
Now only one thing left to do… try to get out!

Made it!