Alex: "Wow, so cool, RATM drummer" Brad: "Wow, dork"
Natural Products Expo East. THE place to be for all types of natural products: foods, beverages, dietary supplements, health and beauty products. All the hippest trends of the natural world came out to play. Probiotics. Acai Berry. Homeopathic Flu Remedies. Gluten-Free Pizza. Gluten-Free Brownies. Gluten-Free Tortilla Chips. Gluten-Free Salsa. Gluten-Free Shampoo. Gluten-Free Acai Berry. Rage Against The Machine?!?
Natural Products Expo was one of the best experiences of my life, up there with my wedding day and the day I touched down @ Fort Drum, NY from Baghdad International Airport. Well not quite. Still, much more than I expected. What did I expect? To learn a lot about manufacturing and marketing natural products. Check. To spot the latest industry trends. Check. To meet some movers and shakers among manufacturers, distributors, brokers, retailers and investors. Check. To meet one of my rock & roll heroes? Hadn’t quite expected that, but check.
From the opening keynote, I knew it was going to be a good conference. Bryant Terry, a self-described “food justice activist,” “eco chef” and omnivore who paradoxically wrote The Vegan Soul Kitchen kicked things off bright and early day one. Interesting and thought-provoking speech. Food is more than just what’s on the plate. A lot more. He made some salient points about revitalizing local farms and local food, retelling tales of summers in his grandparents’ urban oasis filled with fresh beans, peas, peaches and cabbage. Why must we now settle for Ho-Hos and Doritos today? He asked. I agreed, distracted by visions of his grandparents’ fresh vegetables. Some points I did not agree that seem to be more political than food-related. Such is life. Then he told us about THE song that changed his life. He started rapping it. “Beef, what a relief . . .” he began, with a decent impression of KRS ONE. I knew the song. Had heard it probably 2000 times. I loved Boogie Down Productions. I took the liberty of chiming in. He looked annoyed and stopped rapping. I blurted out “KRS ONE, Boogie Down Productions Edutainment!” As if I were a lifeline on “Who wants to be a millionaire” and my wife had just phoned me. Turns out I was the only one who knew the song in the entire audience. It must have looked pretty bizarre to everyone else in the audience, particularly considering I was wearing wool slacks and a blue button down shirt. I looked something like this dude (not really).
Great conference moment 2: Mark Bittman. Forget Bobby Flay or Julia Child, this dude is my culinary hero. He wrote a cookbook called How to Cook Everything. Why would I need anything else? I have used his cookbook 1000 times (sometimes while listening to KRS ONE). I’ve cooked everything from noodle kugel to buckwheat pancakes to steak au poivre to asparagus quiche with some help from my boy Mark. Contrary to my expectations, turns out seeing him was not the conference highlight . . .
I was checking out the Olade booth. Love the logo, the packaging. Tastes great too, especially for a stevia-sweetened product. Talked to the brokers at the booth, and they told me the story of the product: this guy Brad woke up one day with blurry vision. Turned out he had Type I diabetes and lost part of his vision. He had a tough job and used to crush energy drinks. The kind with tons of sugar (incidentally, Red Bull and RockStar and Monster have fewer calories and less sugar per serving than Cranberry Juice Cocktail, but I digress). After the diabetes, he launched a crusade for drinks without tons of sugar and that nasty high fructose corn syrup. Hence Olade. “Oh yeah,” the broker said, “Brad is Brad Wilk, the drummer from Rage Against The Machine.”
OMG OMG OMG OMG. I blushed like a schoolgirl at a Backstreet Boys concert (ok I’m dating myself). I LOVE RATM. It all started in the weightroom. Blasting RATM to crank out that extra rep. Then in the Army. RATM to keep us going on patrol. The first Platoon that I led was nicknamed “The Renegades,” and I decided to adapt “Renegades of Funk” as our official theme music, blasting the song from a boombox during big events. Even today, nothing better than a little “Bulls on Parade” after a tough day on the Bolt Bus.
Who could’ve imagined that I would meet my favorite drummer from my favorite band at a natural products show? I wonder if RATM will soon release a gluten-free CD?