Last weekend, I attended the yearly Registered Dietitian National Conference meeting in Denver. At this 4 day conference, you can attend what they call the “EXPO.” At the expo, aisle after aisle of food manufacturers and food companies are in attendance trying to sway the RD’s of our country on their products. With the countless samples, I could have easily eaten breakfast, lunch and dinner and left stuffed. Although most most of the serving ware were toothpicks, many companies oohed and whooed us with plates full of food. I can guarantee, many RD’s left the expo floor with upset and full bellies. I will now walk you through a small piece of the experience as I ate my way through the booths. The pictures represent about 1% of what you could have sampled.

Let’s start with the treats…(I categorize treats as somewhat “healthy” samples that a RD would have no problem recommending as a nutritious food.

Not necessarily a new food for most nutrition experts, but the berry board didn’t want us to forget the small source of a big antioxidant punch.

That’s right, get your egg on a stick. You could also get a cheese and egg omelet at the Egglands Best Booth, but these hardboiled gems were from the Egg Board.

Honestly, most Americans get enough meat, so do they really have to advertise? Now, if it was Fresh Gatherings Cafe advertising their pork, they would have showcased the farmer that produced your pork, and provided posters on the how and why we should look into buying locally raised, animal friendly pork. That is the type of information that could be useful to hundreds of RD’s…not the nutrition information for a 3 oz pork chop.

Yes, you could an “appetizer” sized tenderloin beef salad as you perused by the beef booth. Wish I had the beef booth’s budget!

Now I will share some “tricks,” or foods that I am sure I have never incorporated into a meal plan for my clients…

Sure they might be made with a “healthier” oil, but they are still fried chips.

Kudos on that new grilled chicken, but healthy items make up about 1% of KFC’s menu.

Hum…M&M plus the word MAX? Not sure that sounds like a healthy concoction.

I won’t lie, I might have asked one of the dietetic interns to snag me another sample from the “Orginal Cakerie” booth.

You wouldn’t believe all of the chocolate samples available, thank you Hershey’s for supplying my trick or treaters candy.

Hungry for a hot Super Pretzel yet?