You recycle, you own a hybrid and you shop at your local Farmer’s Market. You consider yourself to be a pretty “green” person, right? That’s what we thought too. Then we stepped onto the motherload of all that is “green” last weekend.

San Francisco held it’s 8th annual Green Festival. We’re not talking some small, hippy gathering either. SF Green Fest raked in an astounding 42,000 people last year in just 3 days! That’s a rather large hippy gathering if you ask me.

Green Festival is the largest sustainability event in the world and continues to grow year after year. It’s purpose is to help find solutions to help make our lives healthier—socially, economically and environmentally. Sounds awesome, yeah? Not only is the purpose cool, but with more than 125 renowned authors, leaders and educators; great how-to workshops; cutting-edge films; fun activities for kids; organic beer and wine; delicious vegetarian & vegan cuisine and diverse live music… how could anyone not want to go!? In addition to all that awesomeness, there were more than 350 eco-friendly businesses to check out. Everything from all-natural body care products and organic cotton clothing to Fair Trade gifts and items made from renewable resources.

Some of our favorite speakers included John Robbins, author of ‘Diet for a New America’, Colleen Patrick-Goudreau, author of  ‘The Joy of Vegan Baking’ and ‘The Vegan Table’, Ani Phyo, author of ‘Ani’s Raw Food Desserts’ and ‘Ani’s Raw Food Kitchen’ & Bryant Terry, author of ‘Vegan Soul Kitchen’.

We read a lot.

We spent a couple hours wandering around checking out some interesting new concepts, companies and ideas and even met some of the geniuses behind them. Some of the booths we especially dug included AK Press (cool ass books), Big Green Cart (rent and share your stuff to reduce waste), Brilliant Earth (conflict free bling), Cafe Gratitude (raw goodness located in SF), Compassionate Cooks (vegan cooking = rad), Conscious Clothing (hemp silk wedding attire!), Green Tortoise Travel (bunch of hippies on an adventure in a bus),  Greenpeace (you should know), Peace Corps (ditto), Rudolf Steiner College (which Cinnaholic’s one and only Flori attended), Theo Chocolate (the spicy cayenne one – OMG), V Dog Food (vegan puppies!), Wholesome Sweeteners (we love their sweeteners), SF Vegetarian Society (SF, Veg… what’s not to like?) & of course the lovely ladies at Veg News (also the organizers for the SF Vegan Bakesale & SF Vegan Drinks). They are all freakin’ badasses. Check the links.

Ok, so awesome speakers… check. Awesome booths to spend all our money at… check. Awesome hippies to point and giggle at…check. But what was the real reason we showed up?

#1. Our delicious treats were featured at the bookstore cafe! All 80 dozen of them. Whoo Hoo!

#2. For the amazing OH-MY-GOD-ARE-YOU-SERIOUS-VEGAN CORN DOGS!!! Truly, an orgasm for your taste buds.

There are a million things I could write about Green Fest but I would highly recommend checking it out for yourself when they come back around in April. Who knows? Maybe you’ll run into us there! Isn’t just that worth going!?

Seriously though. Vegan corn dogs.

GO.

photo credits: franko follini, luxomedia