Why I Started The Healthy Crunch Company
March is nutrition month. It’s a great time to start healthier habits if you missed out on your New Year’s Resolution goals. Healthy eating can be a challenge in today’s fast-paced environment. As we are always on the go, finding healthy meals and snacks can be time-consuming and demanding. Food marketers and manufacturers promote their products with terms like “natural,” “good for you,” and even “organic,” but are these foods really healthy and good to eat on a regular basis?
As a Registered Dietitian and a trained chef, I believe that fresh is best. But what do you do when you’re a busy person and don’t have time to make fresh and healthy meals or snacks from scratch? It seems like these days, navigating the food courts and supermarkets requires a specialized education to know which ingredients are good for you and which to avoid. Food marketers often trick consumers by labelling ingredients like sugar, MSG, and preservatives with different names to confuse or hide these ingredients. I always recommend to consumers that if you cannot pronounce an ingredient, or do not know what it is, do not eat it!
In 2014, I decided to start The Healthy Crunch Company® with this very mission in mind: to create healthy snacks using only fresh, real, whole food ingredients that everyone could enjoy. Creating snacks without preservatives, additives, or anything that’s not good for you was my goal. I believe that eating whole, real food makes you feel good inside and out, and that’s what I wanted to create.
I have always loved kale and finding unique ways to use it. Kale is the queen of all greens. It’s loaded with powerful antioxidants, vitamin A, vitamin K, vitamin C, calcium, and the list goes on! I decided to create kale chips not only because I love kale, but also because I could not find a good kale chip on the market. All the brands I found in stores did not have the qualities I was looking for. They were not crunchy, broke into crumbs in the package, the pieces were not large in size, and they did not have much flavour. I used my nutritional and culinary training to develop what I thought was the perfect kale chip. Then I had my family and friends try my products. Everyone loved them and started to ask me to sell them. So what does any true entrepreneur do when they cannot find a product that they want? They create their own! This is how The Healthy Crunch Company® started – with my own desire to create a healthy snack that my family, friends, and I could enjoy.
At The Healthy Crunch Company® we make kale chips that are BIG in flavour, BIG in crunch, BIG in size, and BIG on love, but that are made in small batches. We use all organic, non-GMO ingredients to create the world’s tastiest kale chips. We start by using fresh, local kale that is washed and gently massaged with our hand-crafted dressings. Our dressings are what make our kale chips burst with flavour and what inspires the names of our healthy snacks: Say Cheeze!®, Bollywood Blast®, The Big Chipotle®, The Cool Cucumber + Dill®, Hello Jalapeno®, and Monkey Business®. Our kale chips are air-dried at a low temperature so no nutrients are lost. No frying, oven-baking, or cooking here, just super-crunchy deliciousness. One of the unique features of our products is that they are the first and only kale chips in the world to be free of all major allergens, so that everyone can enjoy them. Our products are certified organic, non-GMO, tree-nut-free, peanut-free, gluten-free, vegan, dairy-free, corn-free, soy-free, raw, and paleo-friendly. I like to say our products are free of everything you don’t want and full of everything you do want. Wholesome goodness that tastes amazing and that’s good for you.
Our products can be found in major grocery stores, independent health food stores, and many other popular locations throughout Canada, including Loblaws, Fortinos, Metro, Starbucks, Cineplex, Toronto Pearson International Airport, Winners, HomeSense, Whole Foods Market, Farm Boy, and Healthy Planet. Happy crunching!
