Well, what a weekend we had at Balance Festival. We absolutely loved meeting all of you and chatting about everything health, fitness and wellness. Our team from Balance have put together all of their favourite and most memorable parts of the festival.
There was so much food, but what were our top picks?
It was protein balls and bars galore so it was tough to whittle them down to our top picks.
- Barebells - They caught our eye straight away with their mouth-watering protein bars and treats from their Barebells bakery 🍰
- BOL Foods - Great tasting, healthy ready meals! A favourite in the DNAfit office
- Brave Foods - Crunchy, roasted peas - they even have a chocolate & salted caramel flavour! 🍫
- Hippeas - Delicious, organic chickpea puffs - we lost count of how many packets we got through!
- Miiro - Vegan chocolate covered ice cream lollies that you could decorate however you liked! We went for chocolate sauce, oreos and hazelnuts 😍
Three days and three food stalls meant that we consumed (for research purposes, of course) one each day. The winner had to be the Kaleido Rolls, they tasted as good as they looked and they had a great variety! We tested the quinoa tabbouleh with homemade hummus & parsley, the roasted aubergine in tamari, spring onion & chilli and the roasted sweet potato, tahini & chilli flakes all with their own unique dips. Our mouths are watering just writing this!
Is the latest food trend going nuts for coconut products?
In the last few years there has been a definite rise of dairy-free alternatives. This year it’s time for almonds and oats to move out the way to make room for the rise of coconut products.
We have gone coconut cray, there was coconut in energy balls, protein bars, ready meals and even kombucha. Even more exciting was the presence of yogurts, cheeses and lots more that are made from coconut, all totally dairy free. We were fortunate enough to have our stall opposite Koko who had soft cheese and cheddar and we can confirm that they taste amazing!
Other than eating, what else was there to do?
Lots! Every corner you turned there was something different, including live cooking workshops, meditation areas, Hot Pod Yoga, expert talks and some very sweaty workouts. These included workouts with boutique gyms and celebrity trainers such as:
- F45
- KXU
- Barry’s Bootcamp
- Kelsey Wells
- Un1t
Some of the brands had very engaging stands; SportFX were doing free makeovers, Just Breathe had a meditation area full of pillows, Theraguns were round every corner giving people a taste of their product and Pulsin had a massive spin the wheel.
There were some fantastic talks from inspirational people in the health and fitness industry such as Zanna van Dijk and Steph Elswood (Healthy Chef Steph).
We may be a little bit biased but our favourite one had to be Andrew Steele’s talk on DNA testing for wellness and the future of personalised health, he explained his story about the Olympics and how he missed out on a place at the London Olympics because he wasn’t training according to his genetics. For a sneak peek into his story, watch the video below.
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