14 Fancy Food Finds – Organic, Gluten Free, and more!
August 31, 2009 by Rachel Lerner
Filed under City Food Finds, Events, Nutrition
I recently had the pleasure of attending the 55th annual NASFT fancy food show in NYC. Educating clients, including recommending products, is an important part of my job. My overall review of the fancy food show is AWESOME! It is such a wonderful experience for anyone that enjoys good food. That being said, I have decided to write about my favorite products at this years show. My qualifications for a favorite product are a little more unique than your ordinary food critic. I am a nutritional consultant therefore products should meet certain “healthier” standards for me to recommend them. I also am gluten and cow milk free so most of the things I recommend (and of course all of the things I tasted) are gluten and cow milk free. Luckily I brought my PR woman and she was able to assist with the taste testing on any non-allergy friendly food for me.
Now to the good stuff, my favorite products (in no particular order):
Gilbert’s Goodies – I only tried the chocolate chip cookie (which I compared to an old style bakery chocolate chip cookie), but rumor has it the snicker-doodle cookie is just as good. Why did I love this cookie? It is a delicious gluten, diary and nut free cookie!
Brothers-All-Natural - I love freeze dried fruit! It is such a nutritious, low-calorie way to enjoy something crunchy without feeling deprived. While I recommend all of the Brothers-all-natural fruit crisps, the newest, white and yellow peach, is really unique. The peaches are thin slices and not overly sweet, yet satisfying. A whole package is 40 calories, 6 grams of natural sugar and contains approximately 1 and 1/2 peaches.
Justin’s Nut Butter – Do you love nutella but avoid it because it has too much sugar or dairy? Well Justin’s has introduced a line of chocolate butter spreads to include: chocolate peanut butter, chocolate almond butter and chocolate hazelnut butter. (My favorite is a tie between the almond and hazelnut). Justin’s uses evaporated cane juice and organic palm fruit oil. The chocolate butters also contain no dairy. I have always loved the original nut butter to-go packs and welcome this wonderful new product.
Black Garlic - Yes, you are reading this correctly! There is a product out there called black garlic that is just that, black garlic. What is black garlic, besides delicious? It is an all-natural product. In fact, there’s only one ingredient—garlic. It’s aged for a month in a special fermentation process under high heat, where it develops its darker color, softer texture, and sweeter taste. I equate the texture to soft licorice and the taste to mild/sweet garlic. It is a great way to spice up your salads, make purees, or even just to snack on plain.
Solterra - gluten and dairy free brownies and pasta. Why did I love the happy body brownie mix? Besides being gluten and dairy free it had the right moist/chewy ratio to taste like “real” brownies and were not loaded with sugar (a huge offender in most gluten free baked goods). The gluten free fettuccine was amazing and could have passed for regular pasta in a taste test! Thank you Solterra from all your gluten/dairy free friends!
Cupola Cookies - chocolate cashew cookie was quite light, crispy and subtle (think meringue). They are a little higher in sugar per serving size but the serving size is 10 cookies, which is extremely generous. You can easily stop at 2-3 cookies!
Ganic water - pure spring water enhanced with natural extracts and aromas. What a fun water! They carry over 15 different exciting varieties including caramel toffee (which was heavenly, dessert as a calorie free water) and strawberry slim (also good and subtle strawberry taste).
JK Gourmet granola and almond flour - are delicious grain and dairy free products. My favorite was the apple spice and raisin granola. JK Gourmet also offers biscotti and muffin loaves.
Celebrity Cheese - goat cheese was so creamy and delicious. My favorite was the herb and garlic and cranberry cinnamon (which could easily be served for dessert with fresh fruit on whole-grain crackers).
Manhattan Chocolates – dairy free milky toffee was AMAZING! It had the perfect combination of crunch and sweetness. You would never know it is not milk chocolate!
Wai Lana Yogi Chips – are a unique twist on potato chips using cassava (yucca) instead of potatoes to supply a more nutritious snack. I only tried the herb and garlic which were quite tasty and enjoyable.
Tasty Baby organic baby food – while I am not the main target audience for this company, I must say the product I tried was extremely yummy and nutritious! I tried the tasty bangos (bananas and mangos). Tasty baby products are all natural, organic and contain no high fructose corn syrup or other unhealthy offenders. Kudos to tasty baby for making healthy and nutritious snacks for babies!
Riega Foods – CerealVit(gluten free cereal from Italy). The benevit variety was amazing and tasted just like special k (minus the high fructose corn syrup and gluten). Anxiously awaiting its arrival in the States!
Romanicos Chocolate – mission fig bar. What a treat this is! It is gluten and dairy free, made of 65% dark chocolate from Venezuela combined with soft mission figs. It has just the right amount of everything to make it pure pleasure. And 10% of the profits go to chocolatesforautism.org.
I had so much fun taste testing my way through the NASFT 55th fancy food show in NYC. There were numerous other companies that offered terrific products as well. If you would like more information on my product recommendations please contact me at info@personalwebnutrition.com
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