FAQ
1. What's BodZoo's story?
We started Bodzoo to help fill the vast veggie gaps in our own lives. Both of us, Nick Moyer (our chef) and Jag Bhalla, were suffering from salad guilt and from far too much fun-food temptation. So we invented a handy wholesome hack to help ourselves (and hopefully some of you) to eat better. NanoSalad is a tiny tool that you can add to your better-eating toolkit. We manufacture it at Tastemakers Commercial Kitchen 2800 10th St NE, Washington, DC, 20017.
2. Who needs NanoSalad (beyond you BodZoo guys)?
95% of Americans don't eat enough veggies and fiber (see "Closing America’s Fiber Intake Gap").
3. What if I'm the top 5% and feel like I already eat butt-loads of veggies?
You're still way behind the world champs at fiber, even if you're hitting American health guidelines (grams of fiber per day = 25 for women, 38 for men). Hunter gathers like the Hadza in Tanzania eat many times more than that (~100 to 150 fiber grams per day, equivalent to 50 bowls of Cheerios, see this great Vox article "Nearly all Americans fail to eat enough of this actual superfood").
4. Everything looks a bit bare bones, what's the deal?
BodZoo is a future-friendly "basic by design" business. We serve you while being frugal with the Earth's limited resources. That means we make no frills food tools. If you're a frill-seeker, it's worth choosing your frills more carefully (for further details of "future-friendly" living see item 15 below.) We use as much recycled material as possible (envelopes and insert cards are 100% recycled). And try to avoid wasting anything (even if its "cheap," and every scrap of the ingredients that don't make it into our packets, gets composted).
5. How do I know NanoSalad is safe?
NanoSalad has been through a long rigorous approval process to ensure we meet strict government regulations. Here's our approval to manufacture documentation (from Washington DC Health and Licensing Administration). And by the way contrary to what you hear about this, we want to be rigorously regulated (see "Why Every Good Business Should Want Regulation." )
6. What's in NanoSalad?
Each packet contains 100% organic fruits and vegetables. Nothing added.
Just all the plant solids, de-juiced, dried and shrunk, from 20 times the weight of ingredients.
The Savory recipe contains kale, celery, parsnip, carrot, and apple (tuned to minimize changes to the taste of the savory foods you love).
The 2 Veg recipe contains kale and carrot (it has a bold veggie flavor, and both ingredients are low FODMAP and IBS friendly).
The Fruity recipe contains apple, pear, strawberry, and carrot (suits sweeter dishes, adding clear fruity notes and sweet fiber).
7. Is NanoSalad vegan? Gluten free? GMO free? Organic? Keto?
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
8. What's the trick to shrinking salad to be so tiny?
Plants are mostly water, so de-juicing and drying shrinks them. A lot. But we'd like to be clear, NanoSalad isn't as good for you as eating the equivalent unshrunk veggies. You really should just eat more full-sized salads. But... if that's tricky for you, NanoSalad gets you all the plant solids, and some of the other goodies, in tiny take-anywhere packets, that you can easily add to meals in seconds.
9. Can anything so tiny be a useful serving of salad or veggies?
We'd like to be clear, NanoSalad is the second best way to get your veggies. The best of course is to eat the recommended amount of full-sized salads.... but for those of us of don't do that often enough, NanoSalad can help. Each NanoSalad packet contains the equivalent of a sizable portion of salad. For example, a large NanoSalad packet has all the veggie solids from 20 times its weight, a 3 g packet derives from 60 grams of ingredients. For comparison a Kale Caesar entree at Sweetgreen has a base of ~85 grams of chopped kale, so a large 3 g NanoSalad packet is equivalent to 70% of an entree salad (and a regular NanoSalad is equivalent to about half an entree, and a small is like a side salad).
10. Shrunken veggies are new to me, is there anything I should know before I eat them?
Yes! NanoSalad is strong stuff (it has about 18 times the fiber density of bran cereals). So if you (and your trillions of tiny teammates) have been avoiding veggies, it's best to start small and build up slowly. Because NanoSalad is real fruit and vegetables, your bodzoo (aka microbiome) will be excited (just as if you'd suddenly started eating butt-loads of full-sized salads). So you might experience digestive changes. Most customers will be fine, but some may have mild issues (feeling a bit bloated, or becoming a bit windsome), but these will ease as your 'zoo adjusts to putting its 2nd favorite fuel to work for you. That's why we offer the free trial ($1 shipping), so you can figure out the best serving size for you.
11. What's NanoSalad's Nutrition Info?
The standard nutrition label information for a "large" 3 gram savory packet is as follows:
Nutrition Facts for a large (3 gram) packet serving:
Calories 10, Total Fat 0g (0% DV), Sodium 9mg (0% DV), Total Carb. 2g (1% DV), Fiber 1.5g (6% DV), Total Sugars 1g, Protein 0g.
BUT we're not fans of the way many of these numbers are measured and used.
12. Why aren't you fans of the standard nutrition info?
It is hard to measure the real biochemical effects of food. And those effects vary between individuals (labels use averages across the whole population). For example, do you know how calories are typically measured? They use a "bomb calorimeter" to literally burn the food. So unless you're pooping ash, those calorie numbers aren't exactly what your digestive system has available. And different people absorb and metabolize and the same food differently (see "The Science," especially the Death of The Calorie link, which notes that the length of digestive tracts varies a lot, and those with shorter ones absorb less). What all that means is that the standard nutrition measures aren't always great guides (e.g., the basic tests under-count total fiber. ).
13. OK, so what's so special about NanoSalad?
You get 100% of the solid "food matrix" of the veggies that we shrank. It may seem like a small detail but it's important that NanoSalad flakes are not a powder. We want your digestive system (and microbiome, aka bodzoo) to encounter our ingredients in a form that's as close as possible to you having chewed the veggies yourself. Powdered foods are part of our food environment's "ultra-processed" problem (there weren't any powdered foods in the environment in which we evolved). Powders are absorbed too quickly and that messes up satiety signalling (feeling full). It takes longer for you to digest a natural "food matrix" which helps many people feel fuller (for more details see the "ultra-processed" study in The Science, basically it took 500 calories a day more of ultra-processed food to feel full).
And NanoSalad has the lowest calories per gram of fiber of any product (that we know of). De-juicing means we take out most of the sugars. Again, you really should just eat butt-loads of full-size veggies. But if you have a hard time doing that regularly enough, NanoSalad can add to your better-eating toolkit.
14. How does NanoSalad differ from old fiber products?
NanoSalad delivers diverse fibers from multiple real food sources, whereas other fiber products typically use just 1 source (mono-fiber makes for a more miserable microbiome). Your bodzoo values, and needs, diversity (just like we do). We use only ingredients you'd recognize as "real food." We're not using psyillium husks, like a leading fiber brand.... and because psyillium doesn't taste good, they have to add 8 grams of sugar to make 3 grams of fiber bearable. We add zero sugar. NanoSalad is 100% fruit and veg, nothing added.
15. How Long Does NanoSalad Last?
NanoSalad has a shelf life of over a year (the use by date is on the labels in month/year format, so 6/22 means good till June 2022). This long shelf life can be a huge food waste reducer. In addition to the dire environmental impact, the financial value of wasted food is huge. Here's a link to research showing that the average American spends $1,300 a year on food that's wasted (that's more than they spend on gas, clothes or electricity). And the largest wasted food at home? Fruits and veggies... You, like me, are probably guilty of throwing out soggy bags of greens... We have customers who buy less fresh veg now and top up with NanoSalad to avoid waste...
16. Why does "future friendly" mean being frugal with the Earth's fruits?
Our way of life basically hasn't been future friendly. We're not being good ancestors. We're messing up the world we're leaving after us, by largely ignoring the effects our daily choices have on future conditions. Mindlessly consuming resources no longer fits the realities we now know we're facing (see "How To Feel, and Think, and Talk Better About the Climate: 12 Bad Climate Inaction Excuses"). That makes it our moral mission to adapt our way of life to the now no-longer-ignorable limits of the planets resources. Every material resource is limited (or renewable only up to a limited biosphere boundary). And that means there are real zero-sum now-vs-later trade-offs. Every tiny bit of carbon we choose to not emit now, reduces future burdens and compounding suffering--for future you, for your kids, and for all future humans, and all future life, and for whoever or whatever on Earth you care about (as the poetic naturalist Wendell Barry puts it "The real names of global warming are Waste and Greed, see Faustian Economics").
16. What if I still have question?
Email us on [email protected] , we'd love to hear your questions and comments.
We started Bodzoo to help fill the vast veggie gaps in our own lives. Both of us, Nick Moyer (our chef) and Jag Bhalla, were suffering from salad guilt and from far too much fun-food temptation. So we invented a handy wholesome hack to help ourselves (and hopefully some of you) to eat better. NanoSalad is a tiny tool that you can add to your better-eating toolkit. We manufacture it at Tastemakers Commercial Kitchen 2800 10th St NE, Washington, DC, 20017.
2. Who needs NanoSalad (beyond you BodZoo guys)?
95% of Americans don't eat enough veggies and fiber (see "Closing America’s Fiber Intake Gap").
3. What if I'm the top 5% and feel like I already eat butt-loads of veggies?
You're still way behind the world champs at fiber, even if you're hitting American health guidelines (grams of fiber per day = 25 for women, 38 for men). Hunter gathers like the Hadza in Tanzania eat many times more than that (~100 to 150 fiber grams per day, equivalent to 50 bowls of Cheerios, see this great Vox article "Nearly all Americans fail to eat enough of this actual superfood").
4. Everything looks a bit bare bones, what's the deal?
BodZoo is a future-friendly "basic by design" business. We serve you while being frugal with the Earth's limited resources. That means we make no frills food tools. If you're a frill-seeker, it's worth choosing your frills more carefully (for further details of "future-friendly" living see item 15 below.) We use as much recycled material as possible (envelopes and insert cards are 100% recycled). And try to avoid wasting anything (even if its "cheap," and every scrap of the ingredients that don't make it into our packets, gets composted).
5. How do I know NanoSalad is safe?
NanoSalad has been through a long rigorous approval process to ensure we meet strict government regulations. Here's our approval to manufacture documentation (from Washington DC Health and Licensing Administration). And by the way contrary to what you hear about this, we want to be rigorously regulated (see "Why Every Good Business Should Want Regulation." )
6. What's in NanoSalad?
Each packet contains 100% organic fruits and vegetables. Nothing added.
Just all the plant solids, de-juiced, dried and shrunk, from 20 times the weight of ingredients.
The Savory recipe contains kale, celery, parsnip, carrot, and apple (tuned to minimize changes to the taste of the savory foods you love).
The 2 Veg recipe contains kale and carrot (it has a bold veggie flavor, and both ingredients are low FODMAP and IBS friendly).
The Fruity recipe contains apple, pear, strawberry, and carrot (suits sweeter dishes, adding clear fruity notes and sweet fiber).
7. Is NanoSalad vegan? Gluten free? GMO free? Organic? Keto?
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
8. What's the trick to shrinking salad to be so tiny?
Plants are mostly water, so de-juicing and drying shrinks them. A lot. But we'd like to be clear, NanoSalad isn't as good for you as eating the equivalent unshrunk veggies. You really should just eat more full-sized salads. But... if that's tricky for you, NanoSalad gets you all the plant solids, and some of the other goodies, in tiny take-anywhere packets, that you can easily add to meals in seconds.
9. Can anything so tiny be a useful serving of salad or veggies?
We'd like to be clear, NanoSalad is the second best way to get your veggies. The best of course is to eat the recommended amount of full-sized salads.... but for those of us of don't do that often enough, NanoSalad can help. Each NanoSalad packet contains the equivalent of a sizable portion of salad. For example, a large NanoSalad packet has all the veggie solids from 20 times its weight, a 3 g packet derives from 60 grams of ingredients. For comparison a Kale Caesar entree at Sweetgreen has a base of ~85 grams of chopped kale, so a large 3 g NanoSalad packet is equivalent to 70% of an entree salad (and a regular NanoSalad is equivalent to about half an entree, and a small is like a side salad).
10. Shrunken veggies are new to me, is there anything I should know before I eat them?
Yes! NanoSalad is strong stuff (it has about 18 times the fiber density of bran cereals). So if you (and your trillions of tiny teammates) have been avoiding veggies, it's best to start small and build up slowly. Because NanoSalad is real fruit and vegetables, your bodzoo (aka microbiome) will be excited (just as if you'd suddenly started eating butt-loads of full-sized salads). So you might experience digestive changes. Most customers will be fine, but some may have mild issues (feeling a bit bloated, or becoming a bit windsome), but these will ease as your 'zoo adjusts to putting its 2nd favorite fuel to work for you. That's why we offer the free trial ($1 shipping), so you can figure out the best serving size for you.
11. What's NanoSalad's Nutrition Info?
The standard nutrition label information for a "large" 3 gram savory packet is as follows:
Nutrition Facts for a large (3 gram) packet serving:
Calories 10, Total Fat 0g (0% DV), Sodium 9mg (0% DV), Total Carb. 2g (1% DV), Fiber 1.5g (6% DV), Total Sugars 1g, Protein 0g.
BUT we're not fans of the way many of these numbers are measured and used.
12. Why aren't you fans of the standard nutrition info?
It is hard to measure the real biochemical effects of food. And those effects vary between individuals (labels use averages across the whole population). For example, do you know how calories are typically measured? They use a "bomb calorimeter" to literally burn the food. So unless you're pooping ash, those calorie numbers aren't exactly what your digestive system has available. And different people absorb and metabolize and the same food differently (see "The Science," especially the Death of The Calorie link, which notes that the length of digestive tracts varies a lot, and those with shorter ones absorb less). What all that means is that the standard nutrition measures aren't always great guides (e.g., the basic tests under-count total fiber. ).
13. OK, so what's so special about NanoSalad?
You get 100% of the solid "food matrix" of the veggies that we shrank. It may seem like a small detail but it's important that NanoSalad flakes are not a powder. We want your digestive system (and microbiome, aka bodzoo) to encounter our ingredients in a form that's as close as possible to you having chewed the veggies yourself. Powdered foods are part of our food environment's "ultra-processed" problem (there weren't any powdered foods in the environment in which we evolved). Powders are absorbed too quickly and that messes up satiety signalling (feeling full). It takes longer for you to digest a natural "food matrix" which helps many people feel fuller (for more details see the "ultra-processed" study in The Science, basically it took 500 calories a day more of ultra-processed food to feel full).
And NanoSalad has the lowest calories per gram of fiber of any product (that we know of). De-juicing means we take out most of the sugars. Again, you really should just eat butt-loads of full-size veggies. But if you have a hard time doing that regularly enough, NanoSalad can add to your better-eating toolkit.
14. How does NanoSalad differ from old fiber products?
NanoSalad delivers diverse fibers from multiple real food sources, whereas other fiber products typically use just 1 source (mono-fiber makes for a more miserable microbiome). Your bodzoo values, and needs, diversity (just like we do). We use only ingredients you'd recognize as "real food." We're not using psyillium husks, like a leading fiber brand.... and because psyillium doesn't taste good, they have to add 8 grams of sugar to make 3 grams of fiber bearable. We add zero sugar. NanoSalad is 100% fruit and veg, nothing added.
15. How Long Does NanoSalad Last?
NanoSalad has a shelf life of over a year (the use by date is on the labels in month/year format, so 6/22 means good till June 2022). This long shelf life can be a huge food waste reducer. In addition to the dire environmental impact, the financial value of wasted food is huge. Here's a link to research showing that the average American spends $1,300 a year on food that's wasted (that's more than they spend on gas, clothes or electricity). And the largest wasted food at home? Fruits and veggies... You, like me, are probably guilty of throwing out soggy bags of greens... We have customers who buy less fresh veg now and top up with NanoSalad to avoid waste...
16. Why does "future friendly" mean being frugal with the Earth's fruits?
Our way of life basically hasn't been future friendly. We're not being good ancestors. We're messing up the world we're leaving after us, by largely ignoring the effects our daily choices have on future conditions. Mindlessly consuming resources no longer fits the realities we now know we're facing (see "How To Feel, and Think, and Talk Better About the Climate: 12 Bad Climate Inaction Excuses"). That makes it our moral mission to adapt our way of life to the now no-longer-ignorable limits of the planets resources. Every material resource is limited (or renewable only up to a limited biosphere boundary). And that means there are real zero-sum now-vs-later trade-offs. Every tiny bit of carbon we choose to not emit now, reduces future burdens and compounding suffering--for future you, for your kids, and for all future humans, and all future life, and for whoever or whatever on Earth you care about (as the poetic naturalist Wendell Barry puts it "The real names of global warming are Waste and Greed, see Faustian Economics").
16. What if I still have question?
Email us on [email protected] , we'd love to hear your questions and comments.