My Day at The National Heirloom Expo + Photos!

I had been waiting to go to the Heirloom Expo for a few months and was so excited as the day was getting closer. I’m always looking for opportunities to learn something new and experience “farm-to-food” type things. I feel like the more I go to events like expos, festivals, etc., the more passionate I get about sustainable living and eating. Of course, it’s just a domino effect after and all I end up doing is living, breathing, eating (my favorite part) local, fresh food. Most importantly though, it gives me more motivation to spread the word and inspire people to make better choices and to wake up and realize what is actually going on!

This particular expo was filled with good food, thousands of displays showcasing heirloom varieties, heritage animal breeds, educational pieces, vendors, lectures, and movies- they even had a farmer’s market going on!! Besides ‘Save the Seeds’ and ‘Buy Local,’ there was one particular theme that echoed through the all of the fairgrounds: Label GMO’s and Vote YES on 37.

To me, not only was the expo informative, but it was very motivational. It was amazing seeing the GMO labeling signs everywhere. All the kids were running around with ‘Label GMO’ pins. There were many things aimed at getting the message across, loud and clear.

There were various halls on the fair grounds and each had it’s own purpose. One hall was filled with vendors, another with speakers. There was a hall dedicated solely to heritage breeds of livestock and a hall beautifully decorated with hundreds of heirloom varieties of fruit and vegetables. There was even a section dedicated to the dear honey bee (it makes me want to be my own bee keeper!). You could not go anywhere without learning something new.

Seeing all the types of varieties would make anyone grow an appreciation for heirloom seeds. How could we live in a world where everything was the same? Biodiversity is so essential and it’s so beautiful! Unfortunately, Monsanto and the other bio-tech companies are doing everything to make sure that there will be a day where there is no such thing as an heirloom tomato. Their mission is to control the seed supply and turn our food into plastic. I personally do not want to be their science experiment. This is why we need to educate everyone we know about GMO’s, pure food, humane animal raising because the only way we can stop Monsanto is for people to wake up and start caring.

One of my favorite things about the expo was the day they held for kids. Although it was a bit hectic having hundreds of elementary to middle school aged kids running around everywhere, it was inspiring to know they were being fed the right type of information. The people who put the expo together did a great job ensuring the kids had fun while they were learning essential information. They had missions to find certain things like going to the mobile bee hive, collecting objects and writing down certain pieces of information. By far though, my favorite was the “Dunk the Monsanto Man.” It gave me such happiness that these kids were being taught at an early age that the word Monsanto associates with bad. They even had the pool filled with red food coloring and weird food pieces with fake arms in there. Plus, all the proceeds went directly to the support of the GMO labeling campaign.

don’t those look hot!?

I believe the knowledge of the right kind of nutrition with a growing respect for plants, animals, and food are key to a child’s growth. Now, more than ever, I feel our nation has been completely disconnected from the things that matter most and have lost appreciation for all the beautiful things nature has to offer. The future generations, including my son, will be inheriting everything we have left them. I can not imagine my son not being able to feed his future family the way I feed him- with clean, pure food. For this reason alone, it is imperative that we start to get our heads from out of the sand and take the time to teach our children.

Click here for the full album of fun photos I took!

Until next time,
Loriel - Healthy Roots, Happy Soul

This post is part of: Monday Mania