Vegan steak, food upcycling and mushroom microbes: what we learned at the Super Bowl of healthy snacking

If you want to know what healthy snacks you'll be eating in the next few years, Anaheim Convention Center was the place to be last week, for Expo West, officially Natural Products Expo West.

Known as the Cannes Film Festival of natural nibbles, the SXSW of organic snacks, the Super Bowl of conscious Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG), Expo West is where global business gets done and the future of food is decided.

Over the four days — it started Tuesday and ended Friday — an estimated 65,000 people explored nearly 3,000 exhibitor booths. There was much to taste, from vegan cheeses to mini samosas to traditional chorizos to protein-dense waffles. It was hundreds of rows of tiny appetizers that don’t necessarily go together, but after you munch them all and the bites add up, you forget to eat lunch.

65,000 visitors are expected to visit Expo West

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I came prepared by meeting up with my friend Bob Goldberg, a pioneer of the health food scene and co-founder of Follow Your Heart. Goldberg has been coming to this conference every year since the first one in 1981.

“When you’re on the floor, the trend of the moment seems to come out," he said, noting that in the past the zeitgeisty word had been “organic” or “gluten-free.”

This year, it seemed the word was “functional,” as in, he said, “it’s not just a food, it does something for you.” With a laugh and as befits someone who’s seen everything over the years, “some of it’s real, and some of it’s unmitigated bull——.”

Out on the floor I saw the phrase in action. There was a Sati Soda with flavors like Clarity Lemon-Lime that described themselves as a “functional organic beverage line.” Eclipse Foods launched a brand of non-dairy Bon-Bons that “mimicked milk’s creamy molecular structure and functionality using plants.” I also saw a line of “Functional Mushroom Gummies” from NOON, which they say are “neuroscience-backed for Focus, Chill and Sleep.”

One of the many exhibitors showing their wares

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Upcycling

I also spotted a word I hadn’t connected to food before — “upcycling”.

At one panel, UC Davis professor Ned Spang hit us with cold, hard facts: one third of the food we produce is not eaten, accounting for $1 trillion in economic value and causing 8% to 10% of overall greenhouse emissions.

One solution: upcycling food that would otherwise be wasted — not just the food we throw away, but also the leftover byproducts of processed food production, like spent grain from a brewery, fruit rinds, coffee grounds and potato pulp.

Spang is using data to keep track of these leftovers, so innovators can use this raw material creatively — to make all new upcycled products.

It seems to be working. Back on the convention center floor, I tried some upcycled products, like Uglies Kettle Sweet Potato Chips. They’re made from potatoes that have small imperfections or may just be the wrong size or shape. Either way, I wouldn’t even have known because they tasted great.

I also saw Chee-Hoo, a Hawaiian dairy-free frozen dessert bar that upcycles bananas, RIND Snacks, freeze-dried fruit that uses upcycled produce, and Huxley, an energy drink made from the superfruit cascara, the antioxidant rich outer husk of a coffee bean.

Vegan steaks and mushroom meat

I walked around the floor with Goldberg, who was looking for his Follow Your Heart head chef, Proof Fujiyama-Ahira. We found him munching away at the Chunk vegan steak booth. This is a frozen product that sells well at Follow Your Heart. They told the sales rep they’ve seen people walking out the door with four boxes at a time.

Chunk's Joe Loria told me that the meat substitute is a cultured soy and wheat protein that's fermented using a process called solid state fermentation that's been around for centuries and uses less energy.

I tried a sample of the Chunk steak with a chimichurri sauce. It really did taste like a hunk of beef, and later on I found myself picking pieces of the steak from my teeth, just like real meat. Loria said that Chunk is already on the menu at a steakhouse in Florida. It's clear fake steak is getting closer and closer to the texture and flavor of the real thing.

Chunk's vegan steak

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Bob had also told me to seek out a “great mycelium-based meat alternative” called Fynd.

Their explainer video felt like the beginning of a science fiction flick: "It all started in a volcano, millions of years ago actually, when a remarkable little microbe was born.” But they successfully cultivated this microbe found deep beneath Yellowstone National Park and turned it into a “complete protein with all 20 amino acids.”

I gave it a try. The breakfast patties tasted as savory as a mass-produced meat sausage that I claim as a guilty pleasure. The non-dairy yogurt tasted indistinguishable to me from the real thing.

Mushrooms grow incredibly fast and don’t require lots of energy or water to produce. This could become a major source of protein for masses of humans in a world of uncertain food stability. And it tastes really good.

Health trends come and go

Not all new products at Expo West are strictly healthy, however.

“Right now everyone is eating chia seeds and lentils, but in 20 years everyone is still gonna be eating Doritos and they’re still gonna be eating Tantos,” said Top Chef alum Joe Sasto. “We’re not a healthy or better for you snack, which everyone is doing. Health trends come and go."

Chef Joe Sasto and his Tantos brand

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He was there promoting his new line of puffed pasta chips, Tantos. They're seasoned with traditional Italian flavors like marinara, pesto, and cacio e pepe. Sasto says they're inspired by a “combination of my favorite food groups: pasta and nachos.”

I tried the marinara flavor. It was crunchy and savory and hit all the notes that a snack should deliver. I'd definitely eat it again.

This is no struggling start-up. Made in Burbank, Tantos officially launched last July. The chips are now available in 1,300 stores and in the sky with Jet Blue. Sasto and his partners came to Expo West to get their product into more places.

“So we’re hot, up and coming," he said. "Everybody loves pasta.”