VegFoodFest 2013: Part 3 - Sunday

Well, waking up that morning was not easy. After Day 1 and Day 2 at the Toronto Vegetarian Food Festival and a night of eating, drinking and dancing you can imagine my food baby, my hangover and my lack of sleep. That said, I was still so excited and ready to discover more veg-related products and businesses.

It was such a beautiful day, with the sun shining down on Toronto like it was mid-summer. As soon as I got to the festival, I was on the hunt. Thirsty. I wanted either a green juice or smoothie, maybe I'd even try some kombucha! After doing the rounds of booths, I got very discouraged. There were huge lineups at smoothie stands. One of the kombucha vendors were gone, the other one sold out a few minutes before I got there. Sad but hopeful, I tried to find something other than a $3 water from a vending machine. And then I found it. There was a table with man holding a massive knife, beside a box of fresh coconuts. EUREKA! I had never really tried packaged coconut water, and definitely not straight out of the coconut! I watched this talented man strike at the coconut a few times just enough to make a slit to stick in a straw. Well worth the $5 I'd say, and how cool did I look walking around holding a coconut with a straw!

Afterwards, I headed to Kristin's talk on Online Marketing. Kristin Lajeunesse also spoke on Day 2 of her cross-country road trip, Will Travel for Vegan Food.

Kristin shared her expertise and her experience as a blogger. She shared some amazing tips on how to monetize your blog, increasing traffic, guest blogging and other tidbits on working your business. We had a great question period after, where Kristin answered some more direct concerns. My biggest take away from this talk was the motivation, the inspiration and now the knowledge to keep following my dream.
I also met Adria from Healthy Vegas Vegan who is currently on her North American road trip! If you get the chance, check out her website, she has some awesome blog posts and photologs of her trip.

Photo Credit: DAVID COOPER / TORONTO STAR

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Also on Sunday, vegan strongman Patrik Baboumian added another world record to his collection by carrying over 550 kilograms -- that's over 1200 pounds! -- for 10 metres. I unfortunately didn't get to see it first hand, but everyone could hear the crowd cheering across the Harbourfront. See the video here. Patrik's statement “Vegan power” really struck a chord with the audience. This is such a huge moment in the veg community. It's so great when people get together and accomplish these huge feats, and this one was for us vegetarians and vegans!

This concludes my coverage of the Vegetarian Food Festival itself, but also check out my upcoming restaurant review post on my Toronto visit!