How To Keep Your Healthy Eating Resolutions Without Sacrificing Flavor – Forbes

At the very start of the year, we all made heartfelt, positive resolutions that by now we are struggling to keep. For me, Dry January just didn’t work, and the gym membership keeps being relegated to mañana even though there is one around the corner from my home. It seems that the only thing I have somewhat been able to maintain is a healthier diet. Last time I saw my doctor she was alarmed at my cholesterol levels and advised me to avoid animal products and focus on beans and lentils. Yeah, not gonna happen. Yet, the amount of information available regarding what a “proper diet” should be is incredibly overwhelming.

I have always believed in balance and take everything in moderation. I don’t eat junk food or mass-produced fast food, shy away from sweets and sodas and try to avoid processed foods altogether. So, why can’t I lose weight and why is my cholesterol so high? Talking to a friend about this quandary she brought up Picnik, an Austin eatery I had dismissed as an acolyte of the gluten-free fad. But upon closer inspection I found a kindred spirit in its founder, Naomi Seifter.

Seifter grew up plagued with food-allergy-related illnesses. Her personal quest to improve her well-being led her to discover the beneficial impacts of a healing diet. Since it was practically impossible to find options that fit her needs while dining out at restaurants, she learned to prepare meals that suited her diet requirements. After graduating from college, she became an avid spiritual seeker, going as far as living in yoga ashrams in India for a couple of years.

After moving to Austin, seeing a need for healthy, allergen-free foods in the market, she went through the recipes she had been developing and in 2013 her shipping container cafe offering a 100% gluten, soy, corn and peanut free menu. With a mission to make tasty food that also happens to be good for you, it offers options for individuals who are on vegan, paleo, ketogenic, nightshade-free and sugar free diets. “You can find an infinite amount of contradictory information in print and online about what dietary advice to follow,” says Seifter. “One physician will promote the ketogenic diet while another will promote a raw vegan, low fat diet. You can find a nutritionist or a doctor to back up any food philosophy you can find.” Seifter strongly believes that there is no ‘one size fits all’ approach, but there are principles that will help everyone feel their best.

To start, she says, we need to adopt a stronger commitment to eating real food. “We used to live off the land, grow our own food, store it, ferment it and preserve it, and figure out creative ways to live off our bounty year-round,” she says. “Our world is so different now. There is such an abundance of food and ‘food-like’ products at our finger tips at all time that most of us make the decision to eat from a perspective of convenience without connection to our roots.” The next step is tapping into our own intuition around food. “If you eat and feel shame, embarrassment, guilt, discomfort, indigestion, regret, tired, gassy or pain, your body, mind and spirit are screaming at you that your food choice isn’t in alignment with your Self,” Seifter states. “If, on the other hand, you feel joy, pleasure, happy, contentment, calm, physically balanced and energized, you are getting clear physical and emotional signs that you are eating in alignment with your body.”

According to Seifter, emotion also plays a huge part in our experience with food.  If we approach meal time with fear, anxiety or stress because we “need to follow a certain diet,” ultimately that can manifest physically in the body. So, rather than say no to dessert because you feel guilty having it, chose a smaller portion of something you will truly enjoy. “It’s always appropriate to enjoy a meal that might be outside of our normal dietary choices, but only if it feels nourishing to your spirit,” says Seifter. “Christmas dinner, complete with fudge and sugar cookies might not be the healthiest, most balanced meal, but it nourishes our spirit and makes our hearts happy because it provides nostalgia, tradition, family, and community.”

Also important is to eat until you are satisfied and content, not stuffed and miserable, and to focus on finding ingredients that are as close to nature as possible rather than heavily processed. “If you eat honey, try and find a local, raw, unprocessed honey. If you eat dairy, rather than drink homogenized, factory farmed milk, do your best to find milk from a farm you trust. If you eat wheat, try and find Einkorn, or traditional, ancient wheat that hasn’t been hybridized. It is amazing what happens when you focus your attention on ingredients and quality rather than macros like carbs, fats, and sugars.”

Picnik has grown to four locations in Texas and California and has a whole line of bottled retail products sold nationwide such as butter coffee, vegan golden milk matcha, and a coffee creamer that can be used to make butter coffee at home or as a milk replacement in baking, cooking, or smoothies.

The clean food movement is clearly working, and even cynics like me can buy into it especially when it comes to supporting sustainability and small producers. But for brands to succeed they must ensure that their products also have an appealing taste. “There are plenty of ‘better for you’ products out there that are not exciting,” says Better Bites Bakery founder Leah Lopez. “I can tell you that less than 10% of people succeed in following a plant-based diet, because it’s hard when things don’t taste great. But when you bring things to market that are better for you and taste great, it helps people stick to their plans and reach their goals.”

Lopez’ path to healthy food entrepreneurship is parallel to Seifter’s. Her youngest son, Gabriel, was diagnosed with anaphylactic allergies to eggs and dairy at age two. He also experiences an opiate effect and malabsorption of iron when digesting gluten. “Because my son was allergic to these items, he couldn’t enjoy the same treats that everyone else was having at birthday parties and other special events,” says Lopez. “I could see he felt left out and, as his mom, it broke my heart. It didn’t take me long to realize that most available options at the store leave something to be desired, and I wanted every child to be able to enjoy a celebratory treat.”

Like Seifter, Lopez began experimenting in her home kitchen before launching her baked goods and desserts business. Now, Better Bites Bakery has doubled their growth every year over the last five, generating $5 million in annual revenue at the end of 2018. Their cookies, cupcakes, brownies and cakes are available in Whole Foods Markets and Natural Grocers nationwide, as well as other large grocery stores, including HEB and Central Market in Texas.

“I can’t believe how far we’ve come in the past few years,” says Lopez. “All I wanted to do was to make something my son could enjoy at birthday parties, and now there are people across the country sending me letters and emails telling me how much it means to them that they and their kids can have a dessert they can fully enjoy without worrying about their health or having an allergic reaction. Ultimately, I just wanted to bring fun and joy back to the category and make foods that taste just as good – if not better- than the ‘real’ thing.”