How to be good to your gut with Boundless Activated Snacking
27/5/2022
We’ve long been fans of Boundless Activated Snacking‘s delicious snacks, and even interviewed founder Cathy for our social enterprise start-up interview series. But with World Digestive Health Day on the horizon, we thought there could be no better time than now to ask the Kernel of healthy snacks and, well, gut health in general, to tell us more about it. Over to the them…
World Digestive Health Day takes place on the 29th of May 2022, and it’s a day we hold close to our hearts here at Boundless HQ! Why? Well, we’re on a mission to make snacking well easy of course! We make Activated Snacks to help you #BeGoodToYourGut – snacks that taste good and do good. Although the concept of #WorldDigestiveHealthDay is great to raise awareness around looking after our guts, we vote every day should be a digestive health day. Before we delve deeper into the power of activation & our microbiome, it might make sense to set the scene a little…
Picture this: it’s 19:30 on a Saturday in Bristol city centre, and ex-trader-turned-foodie Cathy Moseley is getting ready to pack up her food stall after another busy day serving Middle Eastern mezze. It dawns on her that, despite feeding over 200 hungry Bristolians today, she’s yet to eat herself. Trouble is, Cathy’s got a whole host of intolerances that make snacking a hell of a lot harder. Avoiding gluten and dairy as her main allergens, alongside her “flare up foods,” means walking into the convenience store and grabbing a bar off the shelf could leave her and her gut in even more trouble than not eating until she gets home. Crazy, right? Even though Cathy is one of the 86% of UK citizens who struggle with digestive issues, she still can’t pick up something to tide her over in the majors. “Well, if the big guys won’t deliver,” thinks Cathy, “then I guess it’s my turn to take over”.
Now starts the months of research into healthier foods with gut healthy properties, and recipe development to make them commercial. Deep into her investigation, Cathy is reminded of activation – specifically activating nuts & seeds – potentially one of the biggest hidden gems of the gut health world!
The Activation Process isn’t something new – far from it. Originating in ancient aborigine and Aztec communities, Activation has been used for centuries as a way of drawing out Phytic Acid from nuts, seeds, legumes & grains. In fact, it’s still a pretty hot topic out in Australia, but safe to say it was almost unheard of here in the UK. I mean, who talks about their gut issues here?*! (*1 in 3 of us apparently, according to reports on digestive health in GP practices!) The few brands who were doing it here came at a hefty price point, which is far from what Cathy wanted to achieve. “No more missing out” was her ethos when it came to dietary requirements, and this filtered into the gut health space; looking after our guts should be available to anyone and everyone. Her aim was to create a gut healthy snack the same price as a bag of Walkers.
Cathy then moved onto the next chapter of her journey – manufacturing. She wanted to find someone based here in the UK, who could bring her activated magic to life & keep her snacks affordable. One of the main reasons we neglect our microbiome in the UK is because of the price points of most gut health “supplements” (think prebiotics, probiotics, kombucha and kefir), so this wasn’t going to be a sticking point with Cathy’s brand. She worked tirelessly perfecting a mass-market recipe which was brought to life almost a year on from when she started, and the rest is activated history!
The final piece of the jigsaw was being good to the planet. Because of the soaking process involved in activation, Cathy was very conscious of the heavy use of water to create her gutsy snacks. She searched high and low until she found local Bristol charity Frank Water. Female founded, like us, Frank’s aim is to provide safe drinking water, sanitation and hygiene across forgotten communities in India and Nepal. The ultimate goal, of course, being independence for the women in these villages. With the hours spent previously travelling miles on foot to villages further away to gather water now gone, and the mothers & children relieved of their duties, space is opened up for education; both towards health & academically.
So… Cathy had the products, the packaging, the charity partners and now? It was time that snacking gut good.
Remember that Phytic Acid we mentioned earlier? Let’s circle back a second. Phytic Acid is known as an “anti-nutrient” – it binds to minerals like magnesium, iron and zinc, and can be a bit of a buzzkill at the gut healthy party. We all know nuts, seeds and grains are packed FULL of good stuff, but with Phytic Acid clinging on for dear life (no offence, but…) the absorption of these properties can be limited in our digestive tract.
Enter: Boundless Activated Snacking. By activating, we’re doing the hard part for you. The process is relatively straightforward and involves soaking our core ingredients (in our range, we’re talking nuts, seeds & grains) in a saltwater – think the sea! – to kickstart the germination process & draw out the Phytic Acid we keep talking about. In doing so, you’re soaking out stuff that messes with digestion to leave you with the goldmine of nutrients on offer!
We go the extra mile with our F.A.B. Method (Flood, Activate, Bake) in order for our snacks to taste good & do good. The ingredients we start with are already pretty magical on their own, as we pick 100% natural foods with gut friendly powers (e.g. turmeric and ginger to aid inflammation) and crank them up a notch by starting to sprout the nut / seed / grain they are mixed with. By baking at a super low temperature, we manage to get that crunchy / crispy snack *everyone* loves with the nutritional benefits involved too. Temp is the key here, as going too hot can destroy enzyme and antioxidant activity, but too cold can leave you with a soggy mess. Just like Goldilocks & the three bears, it’s important we get this one just right. Other than tasting great, our Activated Snacks have let down Mother Nature’s defence mechanism & have an increased bioavailability of nutrients on offer. We told you it’s next level snacking!
