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GOURMET NEWS JANUARY 2016 www.gourmetnews.com Naturally Healthy NATURALLY HEALTHY 1 4 Frontier Soups Introduces Two New All-Natural Additive-Free Mixes The traditional chicken and rice mix is made gourmet through its jasmine rice blend, which contains daikon radish seeds, baby garbanzo beans and Mediterranean in- gredients like lemon and oregano. Ander- son suggests fresh fennel and celery for cooks looking to amplify traditional flavors. Frontier Soups' Thai-Indian fusion, the gingered carrot mix, brings new flavors to the kitchen with the addition of red lentils, which also provide essential fiber and nu- trients. Brown sugar and cayenne highlight and deepen the mild sweetness of the car- rots, while coconut milk provides immune and digestive health benefits. The soup mixes are all-natural and low in calories. They're also convenient; con- sumers can swap out suggested fresh ingre- dients to fit their personal diets, and the soups cook quickly. "We use the term 100 percent natural be- cause our ingredients have no added preser- vatives; they're dried, natural field products," Anderson said. "No processing, no additives, to the products," including no added salt, preservatives or MSG. Healthy soups also help dieters lose weight. A Penn State study showed that eat- ing a low-calorie soup before meals — or as a meal replacement — fills people up faster, resulting in their eating less. "You're going to get a more substantial meal, and substantially more nutritious," Anderson said. "And you can control the additions you add, so you're going to get quality and quantity. You're getting value, convenience and quality control." That's good for vegetarians and vegans looking for a tasty soup, or anyone who wants to try their own custom recipes. An- imal-based ingredients can easily be re- placed without sacrificing desired flavors. For example, chicken broth and chicken can be replaced with vegetable broth and seitan, respectively. "Vegetarians are very good at stacking recipes," Anderson added. "The suggestion we give is to not use the beef in the stew; try mushrooms instead of the meat." Frontier Soups isn't new to the market, and it had fans before opening day. The company got its start in Anderson's home, when a friend suggested she package and sell the dry ingredients of her 11-bean soup. Thirty years later, the company has brought consumers 36 original soup mixes. And last year, after a year of training in the company, Anderson's son, Matt Anderson, was named CEO. "The kitchen has been the drawing room of cultures," said Anderson. "It's where everyone in the family comes together." Find Frontier Soup mixes, including their 29 gluten-free options, at Kroger, Great Har- vest Bread, Omaha Steaks, The Fresh Mar- ket, Whole Foods, Central Market, A Southern Season and www.FrontierSoups.com. GN BY GREG GONZALES Soup has warmed winter bones, soothed aching stomachs and brought families to- gether over nutritious, steamy bowls for 20,000 years of human history. Frontier Soups continues this ancient, cross-culture tradition and meets current consumer stan- dards with new, all-natural, gluten-free soup mixes. "I'm such an advocate for what our dried soup mixes bring to the marketplace, I call them meal inspira- tions," said Trisha A n d e r s o n , Founder and Pres- ident of Frontier Soups. "With a few fresh addi- tions, you make a beautiful pot of homemade soup. What we are on trend with in the marketplace is the semi-homemade market. It lets people create in the kitchen, feed their families and eat a good meal. You're going to add fresh chicken, so you know it's a much more quality product that what you're going to get out of a can." The two new soup mixes — Pacific Rim Gingered Carrot Soup Mix and the Ken- tucky Homestead Chicken & Rice Soup Mix — are freeze-dried and mixed to pro- vide an authentic flavor. Follow Your Heart Cracks the Egg Problem BY LORRIE BAUMANN Demand for a vegan product that scram- bles like a real egg has exceeded the expec- tations of it's its maker. "We've never had a launch like this on this a product. Stores are selling – one that sold 700 in the first week. Another that had ordered 500 and sold out in a week. The volumes are just through the roof," says CEO and Co- founder of Follow Your Heart Bob Gold- berg about VeganEgg. Goldberg is no stranger to product launches. Follow Your Heart products in- clude Vegenaise, an egg-free, dairy-free mayonnaise alternative and Vegan Gour- met cheese alternatives. "But there was a missing piece. No one had come up with a good replacement for an egg, although there were substitutes that could be used in baking," Goldberg says. "A lot of people made tofu scrambles, which was a way of filling that gap, but not really well.... The challenge was an authentic representation of what eating scrambled eggs was." After several years of thinking about the problem, Goldberg learned about research with microalgae three or four years ago. By manipulating growing conditions and feedstocks, scientists were able to manip- ulate the algae to make a lot of different ef- fects, from fiber to vegetable oils to complete protein foods. "The particular product that we use does not use geneti- cally engineered algae because that's against our ethic here," Goldberg says. "Everything we do here is not non-GMO." VeganEgg came out of that research, in which the scientists found that in addition to creating plant-based foods that did a good job of replicating the experience of eating animal foods, they were making foods that are sustainable in ways that other foods aren't. For instance, 100 Veg- anEggs can be made with the same water that's required to produce just one chicken egg, Goldberg says, adding, "A lot of chicken feed is fertilized and pesticided- chemical fertilizer and pesticides are used to grow the chicken feed necessary for egg production. All of that is avoided with a plant based egg substitute. Even the water in the process is recycled.... It's a very sus- tainable product, leaving aside all of the is- sues having to do with animal welfare and factory farming, which is an issue for a lot of people." The product appeals, not just to com- mitted vegans, but also to those who are thinking about ways to remain omnivo- rous but still reduce the amount of meat animal products they're eating for a variety of reasons. Follow Your Heart's target mar- ket for VeganEgg includes people who care about a wide range of issues: people who are looking for a healthier diet, people who are concerned with animal welfare and hu- mane treatment of animals and people who are concerned about the environmental of degradation from the way that much of our food is produced, Goldberg says. He adds that, just as many people who eat meat and don't necessarily have any in- tention of eliminating meat from their diet have become interested in meat analogs as a way of reducing their dependence on meat, he expects that there are those who avoid eggs for health, religious or ethical reasons but who'd still enjoy the experi- ence of a fluffy omelet or breakfast scram- ble if they could have it without guilt. "People moving from the typical western diet to a diet that's really wholly plant- based is so far down the road that there will be long time in which people in tran- sition will be looking for foods that are fa- miliar," he says. "At that point, they may say they don't need that. But we're a long, long way from getting there." VeganEgg is manufactured in California. It's gluten free, allergen free and cholesterol free, and it provides both calcium and fiber. It's also shelf-stable with a six-month shelf life. It comes as a pale yellow powder packed in a package made of recycled paper that resembles an egg carton. To pre- pare a scrambled "egg," the user mixes two tablespoons of the powder with half a cup of ice-cold water and whisks it into a yel- low batter that's ready for the skillet. "Just adding cold water is easier than cracking an egg," Goldberg says. "Unless you're re- ally good at cracking eggs." A 4-ounce package that substitutes for a dozen eggs retails for $6.99 - $7.99. 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