My r-Awesome Life

My Comments
I found this company at the Natural Products Expo/Expo West in Anaheim, CA in March 2017. I tried almost all the products (as the cupcakes are not vegan and I am) and loved them! Hence what a great name for the company and there is a story about the name, if you check on their website: http://www.urlovedfoods.com

For my thirty-third interview, I have the pleasure to introduce you to Jonathan Heine, Owner of You Are Loved Foods: incorporated in 2014, first started selling in 2016.

Question #1: Tell me briefly about yourself and why you decided to get involved in the “health” industry?

In 1973, Woody Allen made a movie called “Sleeper”, in which he played a health food store owner that woke up 200 years in the future.
Doctor: “You have to realize that all your friends have been dead for over 200 years.”
Woody Allen: “But they all ate organic rice!”

I was into healthy eating way way way back in the early 1970s. Sustainability (then called “Conservation”) , “health” foods and ethnic foods were new and only in big cities and “hippie” communities. GMO had just started and nobody heard of it.

Some organic growers unwittingly used GMO seeds for their wheat, rice and oat crops. The long term cumulative immune and metabolic effects on many of our bodies weren’t even a thought. Unfortunately, my body was sensitive, so my metabolism and immune system started going haywire, and nobody could figure out why. Doctors told me it was my fault: I had bad eating habits, I didn’t exercise enough, etc. I was running half marathons and at one point was on 1,000 calories a day to maintain. Oddly, cigarette smoking solved the weight issue eating the same stuff. Hmm. Can anybody say “Conspiracy Theory”?

So then the diet expert theories came into play.
First it was low fat foods. So up the starch, and therefore up the sugar (if you get a hamburger, throw away the hamburger and eat the bun). Bagels were considered reasonable snacks. Low Fat yoghurt, raisin bran with skim milk, whole wheat toast with a little no sugar added jam. Eventually, even small amounts of starch or sugar, an apple, say, could put 5-10 pounds of weight and bloating on me in a very short period of time. On top of that, reducing weight would take longer because the bloating and immune reactions would persist. My limbs ached, I had fibromyalgia, and no amount of exercise seemed to stop it. Although training for a marathon did help a lot.

By the time I was 40, I was about 20 pounds overweight, and felt awful. I went to see a famous diet doctor, and following her advice, I gained 150 pounds in under six months, crossed over into diabetes, and felt like I was going to die. Nothing worked.

Then I stumbled onto a nutritionist who put me on a modified atkins program. The traditional doctors said it would kill me. Since their advice had been so helpful, I decided to leap. In 5 years, with no portion control, I released 120 pounds. Not quite all the way back, but getting there.

In the process, I realized there weren’t a lot of tasty alternatives for what was then, an early Paleo, Low Carb, Sugar free lifestyle. Tons of Xylitol, tons of Erythritol, yucky tasting stevia, and yucky tasting monk fruit extract. Tons of Whey and Soy Isolates. Forget chocolate. And the protein bars tasted terrible and had all sorts of crap in them. Nothing to take on trips. No good treats.

So I took out my chef’s “hat”, started going to ingredients and food technology trade shows, and started, for myself, the You Are Loved Foods products. Along the way invented a heat resistant, low fat, ultra low carb, sugar free, naturally sweetened chocolate. And got really good at alternative, starch and sugar free versions, of all sorts of favorites: Cheesecake, lasagna, cupcakes, fudge truffles, granola.

After I got myself and some friends off insulin and no longer diabetic, I decided to start the company to bring these great tasting benefits to the world.

Question #2: If you were stranded on a desert island and were allowed to take only 5 items with you (they can be food, books or specific products that are all health-related), what would they be and why?

1. Iphone and a solar charger. Without that, no books, no music, no sanity. This would include my meditation programs, my wisdom programs, my visualization assistance. And I could recharge the battery. I’d visualize being rescued, and stay positive about it. And, I could watch the three tv series I actually learned to download, which I highly recommend: “Revolution” (about the American Revolution), “The Black Donnelys” (great NY drama, 9 episodes), and “Hunted” with Grey’s Anatomy’s Melissa George (definitely worth watching).
2. A tooth-care kit. 20 Toothbrushes, 10 years supply of dental floss, a tongue scraper, a gum stimulator and lots of toothpaste.
3. A book about the 5 things you should take to be stranded on a desert island. Hopefully this would at least show me how to build a fire and keep it going. Build shelter, find water, etc. Being a Jewish New Yorker, I’d need pictures and probably someone to hire to do all that stuff for me. So I’d need double of everything.
4. A set of knives for cooking and other things.
5. A set of towels and wash cloths.

Question #3: What one message do you want to share with the people of this world that is crucial for their ultimate well-being and longevity?

Be your own physician and seek out all the information you can to keep yourself healthy, and solve any health problem available.

Questions #4: If someone could afford to purchase only one product at this moment to start their journey towards better health (food or health-related), what would you recommend and why?

A bikram yoga membership. It combines flexibility, with strength, spiritual connection, endurance, and amazing detoxing. And introduces you to a community of like minded people.

Question #5: Tell me more about your business/company and/or products you offer to the public to help them achieve optimal health and well-being?

You Are Loved Foods: Always sugar free, gluten/grain/starch free, strictly certified paleo, mostly certified vegan, kosher parve, and gmo free. We have a patented low carb, sugar free and low fat, heat resistant chocolate. We sweeten with our own form of monk fruit extract with various special properties that others don’t have. Glycemic index below 5.

Products include Protein bites, Fudge Truffles, Paleo superfood granola, chocolate cupcakes, 0 calorie sweetener. And AMAZING Taste. Not like the other sugar free, gluten free, Paleo stuff.

We are currently in all three Erewhon Stores, PC Greens, All Vintage Grocers, Lassens Camarillo, Rainbow Bridge Ojai, Rainbow Acres Culver City, all in LA area.

Internet orders: Free delivery program in Southern California for all products, and around the country for our non perishable products (with the rest coming in the fall). Minimum Orders Apply.

Question #6: What are your hopes/aspirations/dreams for the future health of the people and the planet?

The planet is at an existential crisis. As technology reduces the need for workers, and as cumulative impact of the poisoning of our bodies and the planet reaches a new climax, as the 2% becomes 1% and even fewer, and as spirituality moves people away from organized religion, and the conflicting tides of old beliefs and old order clash with new. The old hanging on at all costs, including the safety of the world, and the new, starting quietly but not realizing how important it is to make bold moves. Our thought leaders, our compassionate capital investors, our technology leaders in all industries, must work together to grow a new and more enlightened model of the support of human needs.

Our greatest immediate challenges: global warming, GMO agriculture, overpopulation, ending poverty, available and affordable health care (including mental health care, alternative modalities, and end of life care and housing) for everyone, and to provide dignity to humans in life and in death (allowing those dying to decide when and where to choose their passage).

Food is our greatest natural resource, and has the potential to support or destroy our health. Investing in natural, sustainable processes and making them scalable. Moving away from meats and grain based agriculture towards nut and seed based agriculture, reducing our dependence on industrial meat production. To the extent there is meat and fish production, making it more humane, natural and sustainable.

It is all possible. We have the technology, the resources, and the imagination. And we have not choice, and almost no time.

Question #7: Who is your greatest hero and why?

Abraham Lincoln. Completely Self-educated, our most intelligent and introspective president. A masterful politician, bold and imaginative. He used the law like a virtuoso plays an instrument. Courageous, and a true leader. He led the country to fight a war to abolish slavery and keep the US union together, despite incredible resistance even in the North. Uncompromising in his goals, and brilliantly compromising to achieve his goals. And fought the National Bank of the US (the predecessor to the Federal Reserve), and the New York Financiers (Wall Street) to finance the Civil War on his own terms, even repelling the Rothschild’s desire to control the US economy through its lending to the war effort.

Question #8: Is there anything else you would like to share with the public?

Each body is different, yet we have similarities. As many of us get older, our ability to metabolize fast metabolizing foods (high carb (even “complex carb”), high sugar foods) diminishes. Add to that GMO impacts on the immune system and metabolism, the diabetes inducing food chain, and pressurized lifestyles, and we must reduce our carb intake. Millennials, as they get into their 30’s and later, are realizing: “if I’d known I was going to live this long, I would have taken better care of myself when I was younger”. Our bodies are forgiving, but cumulative maltreatment, even with the best of intentions, is difficult to reverse.

Listen to your bodies, find the foods that work best for you. Reduce the sugars, reduce the starches. You Are Loved Foods can provide some of the yummiest products within that construct available and recipes with more products to come.

Disclaimer

These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA. This company/products is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. All Rights Reserved. Advice and recommendations given in this site or in personal consultation by phone, email, in-person, online coaching, or otherwise, is at the reader’s sole discretion and risk. You should see a qualified, licensed doctor before starting any skin care, nutritional, diet, stretching, and/or exercise program. Information presented on this website is not to be interpreted as kind of attempt to prescribe or practice medicine. You are advised to investigate and educate yourself about any health related actions and choices you make.