“Every question you will ever have, the answer you will find in nature.”
- Bryce Courtney, The power of one
I love that quote, nature is an awesome example of balance. We can all get so out of whack in our lives. Friends, love, diet, exercise, you…. Life…. They all need balance. There is even a new disorder, Orthorexia, an obsession with eating healthy. I can fall into this at times because honestly, the more you know about our current food system the worse it is. Do I wish I could just take a pill like in the Matrix and go on eating GMO's, pesticides and fluoride in my water? No, I don't. But if you constantly worry about it to the point where it causes you stress then all the healthy food in the world won't keep you healthy. Stress trumps it all.
I founded this company in 2001 after a playing field hockey for the US National Team for 11 years. As an Olympic athlete healthy food was obviously a big part of my life. But back then, as an athlete, I equated being skinny and fit with health. Sure exercise is a big part of it, but in my quest for gold (and coming in 5th) I trashed my adrenals, joints and muscles and ended up with a full blown auto immune disease of the thyroid. A low fat, high carb diet is what we were fed. And lots of energy drinks with food colorings, synthetic salts and sugar. Boy what I would give now to go back and make sure I had pastured meats, raw dairy from grass fed animals, good fats from nuts and coconut and better water! Well, actually I wouldn't go back, I much prefer yoga and surfing now. But I do hope to help educate athletes, moms, kids, everyone on the benefits of real food.
After hockey I opened GoodOnYa Deli. The idea was to bring healthy food to corporate America. So I could surf and apply balance to my life I opened the delis in corporate centers. That way we were closed nights, weekends and holidays. The staff loved it too. This allowed them to work other jobs or go to school and not have any work conflicts from us.
Our entire deli menu is selected with the health of our customers in mind. We are constantly looking for better, healthier, unprocessed alternatives. Our bread is organic, our meat is minimally processed and totally natural. We even use hormone free milk and Organic and/or Fair Trade Coffee. We banned splenda and aspartame from our coffee bar because we can't in good conscience provide those after we watched this documentary.
We care about what we eat and we care about you. We search out and support as many local vendors as possible. You can read about them about them on our Café vendor page.
We are a totally plastic free café using 'to go' containers made of compostable materials like sugar cane, bamboo, wheat straw and reeds. The little things add up.
A few years ago The GoodOnYa Bar was born. Our customers are always looking for something quick to grab. We try to slow them down but it doesn't work, so instead we can send them on their way with something quick and healthy. We bought a variety of bars over the years, the same ones I ate when I was an athlete, but we found ourselves bored and at times shocked at the nutritional content. We didn't even know what soy protein isolate was and that was in almost every bar we tried. We don't like ingredients that aren't directly from nature. We just don't think you should be eating things you can make yourself. So we decided to make our own, and here we are.
Our Bar is unlike any other on the market. Our motto is “Every Ingredient Matters” because every single thing that goes into each organic nutrition bar has a nutritional purpose. This is real food. It's food from nature. We have been so conditioned to look at the #'s in the nutritional panel that we have ignored what the actual ingredients are! We have ignored what we are eating! Some people comment that our bar has too much fat. A cup of almonds has 47g of fat. And you can buy cookies that are "fat free". We don't argue with nature. It's not about the #'s, it's about WHAT you are eating.
We want you to feel good about what you are eating and who you are supporting. We will never cut corners. People often complain about the high cost of organic food. There are a lot of reasons why food cost what it does. A major one is that we, you and me, buy twinkies every single day. That's right. Our tax dollars go to subsidize corn, soy and wheat. These huge genetically engineered mono crops are ruining the health of our soil, our waterways and our bodies. If the government helped local organic farms instead of huge corporations that only care about cheap food, organic food would be cheaper and fruit loops would cost more. The organic farmer has to pay extra fees to prove his food is organic while the chemical food makers don't have to prove a thing. It's totally backwards. We pay an additional $4000 a year to be certified organic. Food should be food, and when you add chemicals the consumer should know about it. But we don't have a lobby in Washington. And our little emails and letters won't do a thing. The ONLY thing that will make a corporation change are sales! If you stop buying it, they won't make it. The most important vote you do each day is when you buy something. That is our lobby!
Here is something most companies won't tell you. If you have read everything up to this point you are the type of person that already values the level of ingredients we use. So you know how expensive they are. If you went to the co-op and bought bulk nuts, organic maple syrup, raw honey it would cost you a fortune. True, we get to buy these things at wholesale and you are paying retail, but you get my point. The fact that a twinkie, that has 39 ingredients can cost more than a carrot shows how messed up things are. Watch this!
If organic ingredients were subsidized by the government maybe we could sell our food for less. But I don’t think that is the issue, the issue is mostly about our countries obsession with cheap food. We are always trying to get more for less. Is that the way we should be looking at what we put in our bodies? Shouldn't quality trump value? With 80% of our immune system in our digestive track it's either pay now or pay later at the hospital.
We can make a sandwich for less than a dollar (seriously) or for about $3.00. When we choose organic and local bread that is handmade each and every day it costs about $4.50/loaf. Yes, that's the wholesale price . Or I can choose a bread for about $1.00/loaf with ingredients like this, (don't miss the dough conditioners and mold inhibitors) : Coarse whole wheat flour, water, yeast, sugar, enriched flour [wheat flour, malted barley flour, niacin, ferrous sulfate (iron), thiamine mononitrate (vitamin B1), riboflavin (vitamin B2),folic acid], vital wheat gluten, whole grain wheat flakes, calcium sulfate,whole grain rye flakes, soybean oil, honey, salt, dough conditioners (contains one or more of the following: monoglyceride, sodium stearoyl lactylate, azodicarbonamide, enzymes, calcium peroxide, ascorbic acid), molasses,calcium propionate (mold inhibitor), ground flax, calcium carbonate, yeast nutrient(ammonium sulfate), monocalcium phosphate, vitamin d, soy lecithin.contains; wheat, soy.
With the few dollars we “make” off each sandwich, this is what we have to cover:
Now I don’t want to imply we don't love what we are doing. WE DO! We do it because we love the deli, we love the company and we honestly want to do something positive. This is who we are! Passionate about what is right and wrong in our country. Passionate about food. Passionate about surfing:) and doing something positive. We don't get upset when someone at a street fair complains that our bar is $3.00 and I look across the street and you can get a duffle bag full of kettle corn for $4.00. Or that you can get 2 sodas and 2 hotdogs for $2.99 at the gas station. Or that chain sub shops can offer $5.00 footlongs. That is not who we are. We know we are up against a lot and we are ready for the challenge. We will make our bars, run our café's and do our best. Surf after work and then sleep at night.
We care, that is the bottom line. We sincerely appreciate you supporting us because we feel it literally makes the world a better place.
Thank you for being a part of our day and taking the time to read my thoughts. If you ever want to contact me, I am here.
Kristen Buchanan
Founder GoodOnYa Deli and The GoodOnYa Bar
Check out our bar at www.thegoodonyabar.com