This past weekend we attended the Greater Philly Gluten Free Expo held in Oaks, PA. This was sponsored by Wegmans (Our favorite grocery store!), Tito’s Homemade Vodka, Enjoy Life, Gluten Free Living and Beyond Celiac. Many gluten-free items, products and companies were represented. Most passing out great information and lots of tasty samples, my children’s favorite! They also had scheduled speaking sessions offering valuable information.
Events such as this are great places to learn about new products, taste or sample products you don’t know or haven’t tried yet, and find new things to incorporate into your gluten-free lifestyle. Besides food products, they had booths of make-up, supplements, NJY Camps (which offers a Celiac Family Weekend!) and even information on traveling through Disney. Beyond Celiac had lots of awesome information to share!
We tasted many new products, with Conte’s pizza, Enjoy Life’s No Nuts Seed and Fruit Mix & Sea Salt Plentils, as well as Wegmans Wholesome Cherry Almond Bars being a few of my children’s favorites. My personal favorite were the new brownies by Wholly Gluten Free by Wholly Wholesome!
Of course, for my family, their top find was MomPops, frozen gluten-free, vegan ice pops. We discovered these at a Farmer’s Market by our home awhile back. Now, they are in some of the PA Whole Foods stores, as well as Mom’s Organic (in Bryn Mawr, PA) and Great Pumpkin (in West Chester, PA). Great product! Tasty and refreshing with multiple flavors.
Overall it was a fun experience for all of us. I do need to add that if someone is representing your company (or in a couple of cases if it is YOUR company), you should know what is in your product. Many people have other food allergies on top of gluten. I was absolutely SHOCKED to be told by multiple people, that their products did not have corn in them because they were non-GMO. THIS IS NOT TRUE! Non-GMO does NOT MEAN CORN FREE! This could have detrimental effects for someone who doesn’t know this information! I was also told a product was corn-free, then upon looking at the label, corn was listed in one of its hidden words! When dealing with people with food allergies, one should never GUESS! If you don’t know, say so!
In sharing all of that- this was a great time. We came home with lots of new information and foods to look for in our grocery stores. Being Celiac Awareness Month, this was a great time to have the Expo!
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