Celebrating 20 years of healthy eating and green living

By Walter J. Lyng, The Suburban, Mar 22, 2017, http://www.thesuburban.com/lif...93-2f9b9c2023a0.html

Last year over 35,000 visitors got to experience over 200 exhibitors representing healthy food, ecology and global health industries at the 19th Expo Manger Santé et Vivre Vert. This year, the 20th edition of the event, taking place at the Palais des congrès from March 24 to 26, is slated to be the biggest and best yet. “It was big last year but this year it’s much bigger. We’ve added more space inside for exhibitors as well as space outside,” says expo representative Louise Nassif.

The expo will feature five educational stages with presentations on food, nutrition, gardening, well-being and more, plus the always popular Championnat de Cuisine végétale de Montréal.

Hosted by Caroline Dumas, the participants will have to come up with a gourmet main course that uses local products and that is also anti-waste. The selected candidates will have 30 minutes at their disposal to create the meal under the watchful eye of the jury composed of the cuisine editor-in-chief of Coup de pouce magazine, Catherine Clermont, columnist and author Bob le chef as well as the nutritionist Bernard Lavallée.

“We are not a vegan event but 90 per cent of the expo is vegan,” says Nassif. “It’s not our focus, but that’s the way it happens. People are realizing that they should only consume a minimum of meat and dairy products. It’s not a trend we chose; it’s something that happened naturally.”

One of the current trends at the Expo is to further encourage the use of vegan products and make them the stars of culinary creations. This includes workshops on the usage of byproducts such as pulp, stems, peels and zests in recipes; cocktails and mixes using freshly pressed juice, chlorophyll, herbal teas, aromatic teas, vinegars and therapeutic spices; vegan substitutes for meat; and many more topics.

This year’s expo will also feature a competition pitting professional artisanal bakers from across Quebec against one another. “The challenge is that they have to use organic and whole grain flour to produce three different kinds of bread. Bakers look forward to this contest and work very hard because there is good visibility for the winner.”

After reading the title I was thinking Demerara Guy was celebrating. I got fooled again.