Well with Arielle Lorre - 359: How Food Labels Lie, Overcoming Disordered Eating, & Healthy Girl Skincare with Stella Vanstone & Emma Kula

Episode Date: November 18, 2024

Stella Vanstone & Emma Kula are the co-founders of Stellar Eats, a new kind of health food brand that speaks to consumers in a positive way and empowers, vs. the typical diet culture marketing we're all used to. In this episode, we talk about our past struggles with disordered eating, weight, and beauty pressures women of all ages face, and what we're doing to overcome it all. We also talk about food labels; what you should be looking out for on them (hint, it's not what you think!), ingredients they swear by, and whether mainstream 'health' food companies are actually good for you. We also share our healthy girl skincare routines, what we're doing instead of Botox, and more!This episode may contain paid endorsements and advertisements for products and services. Individuals on the show may have a direct, or indirect financial interest in products, or services referred to in this episode.Visit www.stellareats.com and use code BLONDE for 20% off your first purchase, orhead to your nearest Whole Foods store to try their best selling Coffee Cake mix!Produced by Dear MediaSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Sonderger Go to your Reisadviseur Onccunicars. The following podcast is A Dear Media Production In a world of ever-changing wellness trends and information, what does it mean to truly be well? I'm Ariel

Lori and I'm going to explore this with you. I am bringing you candid conversations that will equip you with everything you need to live your best life and look good doing it. Think of well as your go-to resource for all of the latest in wellness and me as your internet bestie. Well, let's get into it. Hi, everybody. Welcome to the show. I'm sure a lot of you, you are like me and that you love just going to the grocery store or the market and perusing the aisles and finding all of the new delicious things. This is one of my favorite pastimes. And one of my favorite brands that I buy all the time is Stellar Eats. They have the best healthy baking mixes. So I had been doing the brownie one for a long time. It's like this

amazing fudge brownie. It's so delicious. So then I got on to the chocolate chip one. Then I loved the banana bread. Now they have a coffee cake one. It's absolutely amazing, especially right now as we're going into holiday and winter season. There's nothing better than baking some cozy, delicious baked goods and not having to do all of the work. So anyway, I thought it would be fun to talk to the founders or the co-founders of Stellar Eats. This is such a great conversation if you've ever struggled with disordered eating, if you're curious about what goes into a lot of food products and how difficult it actually is to have a healthy food brand. So I'm talking to Stella and Emma. They are two of the three co-founders. They started Stellar Eats back in 2020 with

their third co-founder, Michelle. They were experimenting a lot with eating, nourishing foods after struggling for many years with disordered eating and diet culture. I know a lot of you guys will relate to that part of the conversation. And with Stella being a holistic nutritionist and Emma's background in recipe development and food media, they wanted to create basically a new kind of health food brand that speaks to consumers in a positive way and empowers everybody to eat well while enjoying their favorite foods. And they also wanted to create really delicious products that are grain-free, gluten-free, and naturally sweetened, but never compromise on taste or texture. as you'll find out in this episode, that is a lot easier said than done. So as I said, we discuss

their history of disordered eating and how all of that and diet culture led to the creation of this brand. We talk about some of the issues with the food industry today. We talk how misleading food labels can be. We also, of course, talk all the beauty and wellness things. We talk healthy girl, skin care and so much more. They're so adorable and fun to talk to. And this is such a great conversation for all my wellness girlies out there. And if you want to try Stellar Eats since they're on the show, they gave me a code. Definitely try their new coffee cake mix. It's insane. You can visit StellarEats.com and you can use the code blonde for 20% off your first purchase or you can go to your nearest whole food store and try their mixes. So enjoy the episode. Welcome.

Thank you for having us. Hi. We're so excited to be here. As you guys can hear, listeners, I have two guests today. So why don't you introduce yourselves to start so that they can differentiate who's talking? Amazing. I am Stella and I'm Emma. Welcome. Thank you. I'm excited to talk to you guys today. And we were just chatting beforehand about just some of like the wellnessy, girly stuff. And I thought it would be fun to start by asking, how are you guys resetting for fall? because I think that a lot of people have wellness fatigue and we'll probably be talking in this episode about some toxic wellness practices, maybe perspectives that I think are pretty rampant right now. And I think we share a similar approach, like I said. So what are you guys doing to reset? I love this question. Me too. I can start. Yeah, go for it. I've had an interesting fall where my background is in holistic nutrition. So I obviously know the power of nourishing food. and, you know, that's really baked into a lot of my beliefs, but I'm pregnant and I got very sick with horrible morning sickness. So I basically ate beige food for all of fall.

Nice. Carbs, bagels were the life-blood. You've heard it here first. This is how I'm re-setting. But it sort of forces you to confront a lot of those maybe thoughts that hung around from our days of eating disorders, like those things that are still in the back of your mind. where it's like, okay, this is just survival mode and I'm still healthy and I'm still well. And just because I'm eating a bagel doesn't mean I've been bad or I'm doing something wrong. So I think it's just been an interesting reworking of those patterns. Love that. Yeah, for me, I think it's definitely about having like a balanced approach to food and exercise.

I think we'll talk about this more later. But it used to be a little bit more extreme. and I think just making sure that I'm doing things that are nourishing to my body and good for my mental health because I want to and they make me feel good, but not having any super restrictive or any rules around it. I only moved to L.A. recently. I moved here a few months ago. So it's been really nice for me because obviously the weather is so nice here every day. So it actually brings me so much joy to just go for a really long walk, go for a hike.

that's been so fun because I actually crave that. Like I want to go outside and do that because it's just so beautiful. Where did you move from? Toronto. So we're actually, yeah, we're both from Toronto. We started our company there. We have been growing a lot in the U.S. over the past couple of years. So I've always wanted to move to California. And we just decided it was time. So I've been very happy. So yeah, just being outside and then also the farmer's markets here. I'm obsessed with the farmer's markets here. And that's another thing where you just go and you see all this beautiful, fresh food, and it just makes you want to cook a delicious homemade meal. Yeah. Yeah, I love that. But it's all from a place of feeling good. I think that's the biggest thing for me and for us now that informs the way we

practice wellness. It has to come from wanting to feel good as opposed to maybe previously it was all about appearance. Yeah. Yeah. I share about this a lot when I first started on my journey. I hate that word. But even when I started my Instagram account, I was doing BBG, Kayla at Sinez. We were doing all the Arctic Zero, the low fat, low carb, like lots of diety foods, kind of the equivalent of like snack wells in the 90s, which I know a lot of people have had experience with. And my concept of what it meant to be healthy was like you're bin with abs. That was what I thought. And it's interesting that I feel like a lot of people have followed a similar trajectory where I don't think you can meet a woman who hasn't been influenced in some way by diet culture or impacted by diet culture. It's so ingrained in us from such a young age, which we'll talk about.

And then I think almost out of desperation at some point, we have to change our approach. And I know that you guys both have had the experience of transitioning from more of a disordered place to eating, healthy to feel good, not to be skinny, which is such a simple thing. It seems so obvious. So obvious. And yet, it's like so deeply ingrained, I think, that even when you do make that shift, I don't know if this has been your experience, you just said, like you've kind of confronted some of this. It is still there. That programming is always there. Yes. It's so true. And I think we bonded over this lot when we first became friends about, you know, we're like, we're not in the throes of disorder eating anymore where we feel very much on the other side of it but there are still

these little thought patterns or little behaviors that can still arise just from that I think you hit the nail on the head we were raised in the era of everything being skinny or light everything healthy was marketed as making you smaller and I feel like I tried every single diet out there because that's you know the headspace I was in and so when the paleo diet came about I tried it and basically what happened was I was eating a lot of fruits and vegetables, unprocessed meat and nuts and seeds, and I started to feel really good. And it was the first time I wasn't eating just probably processed low calorie food and I was eating whole food sources. And so you're right, it was this aha moment where I was like, oh, people eat healthy for reasons other than just being

skinny. It's because you feel so much better. And that's a way more sustainable motivation. I think or motivator. Exactly. Even though back in the day, it was like, nothing feels as good as being skinny. That was our motto in high school. Yes, we talk about this. Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels.

That's what it was. Yeah, exactly. It's criminal. And we always talk about this too, the certain things that we used to eat because we were just, that's what was advertised to us, fat-free, everything,

sugar-free. We always talk about the special K diet. Yeah, I know you guys said your Roman Empire with the special K diet. I didn't know that one. I thought I knew them all. What was the... It was basically Special K said, try the Special K diet where you eat a bowl of Special K with skim milk three times a day or something. I don't know exactly what it was. I might be mis-coting out, but it was something along those lines. No, it was replaced two of your meals with

special Kays. So don't eat, essentially. I mean, like, follow the money. But it's so funny. We always talk about, you know, Stella and I, when we first became close, We talked a lot about how we made that switch from eating sugar-free jello or fat-free yogurt as a snack, which don't even taste good. When you think about it in retrospect, it didn't actually taste good. It didn't feel your body. And when you make the switch to eating real food, you just feel so much better, so much more energetic and happy. And I think we both felt that a lot.

And as women, all of a sudden you're like, oh, my hormones are balanced. My skin is so much better. I have energy in the afternoon. Like all of these things that we just, that was never what was taught to us. It was just about how you look. It was just about being skinny. Yeah. Yeah, I talked about this before in my podcast, but I remember like my first experience with diet culture, I was probably in middle school. All the girls were doing the cabbage soup diet. So I don't know where we were getting this. I think it was in like 17 and YM magazines. Like those were our social media kind of back then. Yes. And that's where we were getting all of our messaging and our information. and it was like you eat cabbage soup, three meals a day, which is disgusting.

Horrible. And then I remember my boyfriend at the time, his family was on the Atkins diet. So it was like so much like mashed cauliflower and which I do still kind of fuck with like a cauliflower situation. Done well. Done right. Sure. With butter. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But I mean, and it was so normalized back then. And obviously like things change. culture changes. Like, there's so much about that time that it would not go over well now between diet culture and just other like cultural things. But I don't know. I feel like now, kind of what I was saying in the beginning, like wellness culture is so saturated. And I think

wellness culture has kind of adopted a lot of these diet culture practices. But they're very like subtle sometimes and kind of in disguise. Are there any things that you guys have seen, whether it's in like the food industry or just in the wellness industry as a whole. Yeah. I think in terms of the food industry, I mean, I think it's all over social media. I find a lot of the what I eat in a day videos can be really tough because it's like what works for you might not work. Obviously there are people that do it well, but there are some people where I watch it. And I'm like, oh, if I was a 13 year old girl watching that, I'm not sure if that would have done good things for me.

And then in food, I think even just so many brands still call themselves things like skinny this or just the way it's marketed. And I think a big thing in starting our company was we really wanted to be this different kind of health and wellness company where we really only talk about how our products make people feel. It's never about how you look. And we've gotten some pushback. I feel like people have told us, you know, you'd make more money if you called them skinny cooking. cookies and we're like, we'll just never do that, you know? Yeah. And another thing, I think that we see a lot and we've actually had to, there's definitely been times where we've had to correct people who have said this to us. People love using the term guilt-free. And we never use that term because you

should never have to feel guilty for anything that you're eating. You should be able to eat all the foods you love and enjoy them and you don't need to call it guilt-free. There's no guilt attached to that, right? So I think we're really careful about not saying that. but I think a lot of companies still do. Well, at the end of the day, it's about making money, right? And the things that tend to make the biggest splash are the sexiest things and absolutes and things that are going to, like, get somebody emotionally involved, like some kind of reaction. So skinny this, guilt-free that, cheat meals.

Cheat meals, that's another good one. Yeah, I mean, you see it with like even nutritionists and, like, people, professionals in the field, I'm sure you saw it. The people who are the loudest and have the most absolute viewpoint, whether it's right or wrong, those people tend to kind of rise to the top. And if you're just very moderate, like that unfortunately doesn't get the attention of as many people. Yeah, totally. If you're calling out someone's insecurities and saying, hey, I'm going to fix those for you, whether it's weight, whether it's skin, whatever it is. And you're promising people that your product or your platform has the answers for them, of course, they're going to buy it.

And I think there is so much value in that for certain people. But of course, there are some predatory versions of it. And it is so frustrating for us to see. And I think all we can do is just try to uphold our values, even though it can be tough. Yeah. Definitely. Especially when, yeah, it probably would. Like certain things are so marketable, right?

Yes. Yeah. But, okay. I'm curious, like, how you transitioned from a place of disordered eating to incorporate more healthy foods and how did you deprogram some of that stuff? Because I get so many questions from people. Anytime I do Q&A, it's like there's so many people who still really do struggle with disordered eating, like counting calories, but to their detriment, all of these practices. And I know for myself, like it was so hard to get away from that too. And I don't really have a good answer.

So I always am curious how other people got through it themselves. That's a great question. And obviously we're not professionals and there are certain people that are much more more able to speak on this, but I think in terms of our personal experiences, for me, I know a big part of having an eating disorder was how isolating it was. And sometimes when you are in that space, it's like this, you know, it's a mental health illness that you're trying to protect and keep secret from everybody. And I think a big shift for me was reminding myself that food is so much about community and just really eating around other people because then it stops being about how many calories are on my plate. And it's more just about the dinner that I had with

friends or family or cooking with my grandmother. It's less, it's, you know, it's about people. It's not about the food. I love that. And I think Stella and I both feel this way. For me, learning to cook and bake was such a huge healing aspect of my healing. I think just spending time in the kitchen, learning what flavors go together, learning to add, you know, the appropriate amount of to fat to certain dishes and kind of working on something until it tastes good and really tapping into your taste buds more than being concerned about the calories or the certain ingredients that are going into it. And I think part of that too is just learning to cook and bake with whole foods. You know, we were experimenting a lot with gluten-free baking. So we were using

almond flour and coconut sugar and just less processed foods that come from whole food sources. And it's so funny. I think we talk about this a lot. But I remember, I used to always read nutrition labels. And the first thing I would look at would be the calories and the fat of something. And now all I do is read an ingredient list when I'm looking at a package. And I feel like that's such a nice reminder of healing. I don't even think about the calories that are in something. I just look at the ingredients and I'm like, you know, is this a nice list of ingredients that I know are going to make my body feel good?

Yeah. And I think going to school for holistic nutrition and learning scientifically what certain foods really do to your body, it really showed me what a poor measurement calories are of what we're putting into our bodies. Like 100 calories of avocado is going to do very different things to you than 10 calories of sugar-free jello. And so learning that, I think it helped me appreciate and love those whole food sources more and just gravitate more to them. And then, again, I think we can't speak enough about that feel good piece. When you start to feel good and it's sort of addicting, you're like, I don't have low energy. I don't have anemia. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. So at what point were you like, okay, I'm going to get into the food industry. Kind of by accident. I know everything. Quite the story. Kind of by accident. So I went to school for holistic nutrition.

after graduating, I had this food blog called Stellar Health where I was making recipes, and I started to see nutrition clients. And after a while, my nutrition clients would just say, oh, I wish you would just cook for me. That would be so much easier. So I went, okay, how hard can I eat? At this point, a self-taught chef have never started a business before. So literally just started cooking meals for people, driving them around the city of Toronto where we lived.

And that was really how it started. And, you know, we grew that company to be sending out hundreds of meals a day, working in a commercial kitchen. And at the time, my cousin who had just had a baby named Michelle, she started ordering meals from me. And she kind of looked at me and was like, do you need some help? And I was like, I have no idea what I'm doing. I'm literally a self-taught chef. I set our pricing based on vibes. Like, I had no idea.

So she had more of the finance operations background and came in to help with that. And then so we were. literally so crazy. That would be me, by the way. Yeah, didn't know what a margin was. I didn't know what I was like, that feels right. So meanwhile, so Stella and I have known each other since high school. We were acquaintances, I would say. In high school, we weren't super close. And then we both went to the same university and we became better friends at university. So in the few years following university, we had stayed in touch. And I was working in a sales and marketing job. It was a corporate job. I was really bored. I wanted to do something more

creative. This was the time where I was getting really interested in food and cooking. So I was like, okay, I'd love to find a job in the food industry. I'm willing to do anything. I just want to quit my job. And I was scrolling on Indeed one day at work, and I saw a job posting for Stellar Eats, which was Stella's meal delivery company at the time. And so I went out on my lunch break and I called her and I was like, hey, I want to quit my job. Should I come work for you? Will you hire me? And she was like, yes, quit your job. So I think honestly a week later, I quit my job with no other plan besides working in your kitchen a few times a week. But I was like, you know what, I got to get out of this. I got to do something new. So for the first six to eight months, I was just helping Stella out

in the kitchen. And we were kind of working on that business, trying to scale it. It was difficult to scale a business where, you know, you're working with fresh food. And it was pretty local at the time and you can speak to the philosophy as well. Yeah, I think from a philosophy standpoint, it never felt totally right to me just dropping meals on people's doorsteps because I think such a big part of my healing process like Emma was learning to cook and feeling that confidence in the kitchen I think really helped me build confidence outside of the kitchen and just kind of gain that piece of myself. So I was like, oh, I would love if there was a way for us to help people have that feeling, but make it easy. And so this idea for baking mixes sort of started to

float around me, you and Michelle, because we were like, oh, it kind of solves the scalability problem because it's powder in a bag. And also it really, it helps us get into people's home kitchens, but they get to make something themselves that they feel proud of, that they can serve to their family and feel good about. And like, what a nice experience to be able to give to those people. Yeah, we're kind of giving them a shortcut and empowering them to be able to make something really delicious and healthy themselves. And at the time, I was baking a lot and I would bring stuff to Stella in the kitchen and she would do the same for me. We were really into baking, experimenting with gluten-free baking. So, yeah, we had the idea for the baking mixes and we pivoted the business.

I called Michelle and I was like, we have a crazy idea. Do you want to shut down our business? And she literally looked at our bank account. I think at the time we had $6,000 in the bank account, and she went, shut it down, let's pivot. So literally stopped the meal delivery. Me and Emma went into our apartment kitchens testing recipes. Michelle started sourcing packaging and ingredients, and that was our pandemic, was just us testing recipes and calling each other being like, okay, I tried the brownies. You have to make them with like two tablespoons less almond flour and one more tablespoon coconut sugar.

It took us, what, six months to develop our brownies? recipe. That was the hardest. That was the hardest one. Freezer full of brownies. Yeah. Some of them came together more quickly. The brownie for some reason was so tough. But yeah, we launched with four products. We started very locally. We just went around to different natural food retailers in Toronto, brought them samples of our cookies, and asked if they wanted to bring our product in. And we got pretty lucky. A bunch of them said yes, a bunch of kind of the major natural food chains in Toronto. Because I think part of what we feel is also health food shouldn't taste restrictive. It shouldn't taste like cardboard. It should taste good if you're going to, there's no point otherwise.

It needs to make you feel good and it has to taste good for sort of our non-negotiable. So I think that kind of became our secret sauce was baking up these cookies, driving them to any store that would take a meeting with us. And the buyer would try them and go, wow, this doesn't taste like any other gluten-free product I've tried. Sure, I'll take a couple cases. that was really how we started, but fully one foot in front of the other having no idea what we were doing. And now it's in about 2,000 stores. Which is crazy. It's crazy for us, too. I don't think we never would have known when we started that this is where we would be today. I feel like so many successful entrepreneurs, though, that I talk to. That's how they feel.

they were kind of like made something out of personal need or they just felt like they saw like a space in the market, a gap in the market. And then they have this like massive success. And they're like, well, I didn't really think it was going to like turn into that. It's not like they had a business plan and was like, I'm going to be in 2,000 stores or something like that. Totally. We did not have that kind of plan. We hadn't even planned from the beginning to go to the U.S. Of course, it was kind of in the back of our minds, but we were just pretty focused on Canada at first. And then in 2021, so we had only been in business for one year at that time we started in 2020.

And in 2021, we got an email from Arawan asking for samples of our product. They wanted to bring it in. And we thought it was a joke. We thought it was fake. We thought it was like a spam email. We were like, Aeroon Market didn't just reach out to us for nobody. As if. So that kind of launched us in the U.S. earlier than we had expected.

How did they find you? I was going to ask you about getting into Aeroon. You know, to this day, we still don't have a solid answer. I think they probably must have seen us on social media somewhere. We had had maybe a couple of big influencers post about us at that time. So maybe they saw through that. And actually, we became really good friends with our Airwan brand manager. She left Airwant.

But we've asked her and she was like, even she doesn't really remember. She's like, I don't know. You were just kind of around and we were curious. We were like, okay. I got to ask Beto. Maybe it was like one of his daughters or something. It was actually, he has been a really important mentor to her. I love him.

So Sydney, she now owns French squirrel. Oh, okay. I love those. They're so good. Yeah, those are so good. Oh, wow. So she was at Airwine and then she broke off and made her own. And I think Vito was a big part of her.

Really? Journey. Launching that product. Yeah. He's like a big advocate for everybody. Yeah, truly. And Airwan has been such an amazing partner for us. And look, when we came to the U.S., we didn't know anything.

We had French and English packaging because that's what you have to have in Canada. Our nutrition labels weren't quite right for the U.S. and Airwain just worked with us on every level. They're like, okay, yeah, like, if it's delayed, no problem. It was just they were so nice. I feel like we've really grown since then, and they've kind of like grown with us. Totally. In a way.

And it was cool. We didn't know what we were doing. And I feel like they had five stores when we first. Yeah, they've also expanded so much in the last couple years. I know. It's crazy. I mean, they've become a recognizable. national, maybe even internationally, like wellness brand. A hundred percent.

And it's a grocery store. Exactly. It's crazy. It's amazing. I think that's as well why it was such a great first U.S. retail partner to us because it's such a marketing play in that way as well. It's not just a retailer. It's like an internationally recognized wellness brand.

So that was, you know, we got really lucky with that. What goes into getting the right ingredients and how difficult is it to get like the best ingredients and not cut corners and things like that. I would just imagine like in a food product, there are so many ways to make it cheaper. Oh yeah. Well, you start to see very quickly how easy it is to cut corners. Oh, yeah. If we just were to use mostly white sugar and a bit of coconut sugar, how much cheaper it would be. But oat flour instead of another, you know, almond flour is the base of our mixes. And that is a relatively quite expensive. flower compared to others, but we kind of just went into this from the beginning, having a really

strict set of parameters. We wanted everything to be gluten-free, but also grain-free. So we don't use rice flour, oat flour. Nothing bad about those. We just don't use them in our product. So essentially every product has to be almond flour, and then we use a starch, so like a tapioca or an arrow root for texture. Everything is sweetened with organic coconut sugar, and then just kind of baking soda and salt and a bit of coconut flour. And we have those parameters for every single one of our products. So if it doesn't fit and it's not working, and we've tried many different products that have not worked.

But if it's not working, we won't do it because we don't want to compromise on those ingredients. And blood sugar balance is so important to how you feel. And so I think having ingredients that really prioritize that, we love almond flour because it's high protein, high fat, and coconut sugar, because of it. it has some fiber in it. So it's not, our treats, you know, you eat one and you don't get that same spike and crash. Like, you actually feel really good after eating them and you feel satisfied. You feel full.

You're not just eating empty. I feel like a lot of those keto treats, not to throw so much shade, but I feel like a lot of them, I'm like, I eat it and I'm like, I still want a cookie, you know? Yeah, yeah. Or they have things that are sweetened with like stevia monk fruit. I don't necessarily do that well. And like xylitol, all these things that now that's coming out how detrimental it all is to your gut health. And I think for me, from a nutrition standpoint, blood trigger balance and gut health is so important to your overall well-being and how you feel.

And so those were just those non-negotiables. And Emma is an amazing baker way more talented than me. So she manages to make magic within those parameters. So do you come up with the recipes for the most part? And then you guys kind of test them and yeah. So we come up with the ideas together of what products we want. make and then yeah usually I do the bulk of the product development. Stella helps me a lot. I'll send her a recipe and be like, can you try this and give me notes on this? So we definitely

do it together. But yeah, essentially just testing in the kitchen until something is really good. We just launched our most recent product was a coffee cake, which is actually made with organic date sugar. So the sugar and it is literally just ground up dry dates. And that one has done really well. It's at like Whole Foods in the U.S. nationwide. And that one's been a really fun one. And that was a fun one to develop. And it's been a really, it's been really cool. Because I think also everyone's waking up to that blood sugar stuff and how much, how good you feel when you balance your blood sugar. And especially, we have a lot of people who are diabetic who could now eat that treat because it's dates versus any other kind of sugar. And the date sugar really kind of

differentiates the product from other baking mixes as well. And, It's cool. We spent a lot of time developing that product and we were trying to think about how to do the strusel topping because you know how that's the best. So key to a coffee cake, right? And we were kind of thinking about, you know, should we put a little pack in? And then Stella came up with the brilliant idea where you just remove some of the mix from the bag and mix it with butter and then that becomes the topping on the cake. Smart. So smart. That's my one contribution. It's a key contribution. Yeah, that's huge because it's like the best part. It is. You can't have. Otherwise, it's just like a cinnamon loaf. Yeah, exactly. It's so good. I made it recently with brown butter instead of regular butter and did a brown butter glaze on top. And it was highly recommend. I'm curious about the packaging. So I'm like getting into products. So I'm so interested in all of this. That's so exciting. But I feel like nowadays, not saying this for your category necessarily, but like I go into Air One, for example. I'm at the chip aisle. And there's 100 different kinds of chips. And it's like you're going to probably make a decision based first on the packaging. So whatever your eye is drawn to. And even with like skincare, everything, it's like you, it's the look, it's the feel, everything.

And then you're looking at the ingredients or whatever. So how did you guys land on your packaging? So you have great packaging. And do you think that that's like a big part of it? I feel like the packaging like opens the door and then the good product is going to like keep the person there. 100% agree with that. Thank you for saying that. We always say it's like it's your face. Yeah. It's like the first, yeah, it's the first thing anyone sees. The packaging was actually a funny one. We had an idea, a concept for what we wanted it to look like. We knew we wanted it to be very different than any other package, especially in the baking aisle, which you know is a lot of, it's like the Duncan High and the Betty Crocker. It's just those really old school colors. And there was just a lot of bright colors, a lot of reds. And so we were like, what if we did?

Primary colors. Primary colors. So we were like, what if we did pastels? And then actually we had a friend who did us a solid. He was really high up at a digital, like a design agency. And he basically designed one package for us. And then we just took that and kind of ran with it and kind of just replicated it onto every single other package.

But we can't really take credit for that design. He just took that vision and. really executed it well. Yeah, he did. And we knew the colors we wanted, but we also wanted it to be really clean, really minimal. I think that's what helps it stand out as well. And I think it also kind of speaks to the product in an indirect way. You know, the packaging is very minimal. The ingredients in the product are very minimal. We wanted it to have just a super clean, elevated feel, which again, I think kind of makes us stand out against others. Yeah. A lot of packaging just, it's yelling at you. Yeah. It's like, oh, my gosh. It's too much. It's too much.

Yeah, less is more. Less is more. Exactly. I want to hear about your product. Very early stages. But I mean, it's a lot. And I'm just like, there's so much that goes into it. And I don't think people realize when they are holding the final product in their hand, whatever it is.

Like all of the little decisions and nuanced things that have gone into it. So it's like really, it's really amazing what you guys have done in like a short period of time. time too. Oh, thank you. And it's funny, the way it starts is not the way it is now. And I think a lot of people wait till it's perfect. Yes. And I think something we really learned, I mean, at the time, I think we thought it was perfect. Oh my gosh. We had sticker bags that and I would hand sticker front and back. Oh my gosh. When I see stickered packaging in the grocery store, I always buy it, because I'm like, you guys worked really hard on that. Yes. I saw a quote and I can't remember where it was, but it was basically like if you're not embarrassed by your first iteration, you started too late.

A hundred percent. We've learned so much since we've started. Our brand has evolved a lot and, you know, the core of it is still there. But you really have to just learn as you go. You can't really learn things without actually doing them. So you got to just go with it. You got to pivot a lot and make a lot of quick decisions. Yeah.

And now you guys are, what, seven figures a year? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's been a crazy journey. Yeah, yeah. It's not easy to get here and we made a lot of mistakes along the way. But I love that we went in a bit naive because I feel like, you know, we've worn every hat.

We now know what we're good at, what we need to outsource. And having made those mistakes, you know, you really, you have to learn quickly. What are some brands that you admire that are kind of doing something similar to what you want to do in the industry? Well, actually, I love a ray. Yeah. And I feel like their whole brand and their ethos and their packaging and the way that they engage with their community is so cool. And I know they're more in like supplements versus food. But I think from a brand perspective, it's definitely something we aspire to.

Yeah. I think dough as well. Sabina's been such a great mentor to us. And they have so many amazing products now. The donuts were obsessed with the maple glazed donuts. I've never had the donuts. Oh my gosh. They're out of food.

Really? We just have the pumpkin spice one. Yeah, pumpkin spice donuts. They taste like the most decadent donut hole. They're made with such good ingredients. I feel like there's just so many brands now, which is an amazing thing, that have such a great brand and a great product. And they're just so good at kind of combining those two things.

Another one I think is Fly by Jing. We just went to, have you been to her store in Larchmont? No. We just went there earlier today. It's amazing. It's so cool what she's built. She has this storefront now. She has a cookbook.

She has amazing products. I think that's just such a cool way to build a brand, is having all of these different touch points and different ways to reach consumers, I think, is really smart. What do you guys think of Stiette? I love. You know what, though? There's drama over the sale. Who bought them?

People are angry about the PepsiCo. Yeah. Purchasing them. And I think we maybe have a different perspective on it. I think our perspective, having seen the incident, notes of grocery stores is they are really tough to work in, and I will not throw shade it anyone specifically, but I think that people don't understand the cost that emerging brands have to pay to not only get on shelf, but stay on shelf. And that can be really prohibitive. And so

unfortunately, what happens is either innovation gets squashed out by these larger companies, or they have to get acquired at some point, because, that's kind of the only way to grow. Like, you can't really compete with these huge giants on shelf. And so I think there's a lot of players, let's call it at fault, for the kind of the food conglomerates. But I do not fault the Siette brand at all for taking that path. And I think we all just hope the same thing, which is their ingredients stay as amazing as they are. Well, I think something that a lot of people don't understand is often when a, brand gets acquired, not all the time, but often they keep their same team, they keep their

same office, they just have access to all the resources that that larger brand has. So, you know, they have more production abilities. They have bigger distribution. And to be fair, Siette has built an amazing brand on their own without that help, but I don't think it's necessarily the case that they're getting bought and now Pepsi's going to switch out all their ingredients for some shit quality. Like, it's possible for a brand to maintain their integrity when they get acquired. And I think a lot of people don't understand that. I think there are some good examples. Yeah.

Larabar was purchased by someone. And I'm happy to see that these big companies are looking to emerging better for you brands, as opposed to just making their profile all white sugar, white flour and, like, chemicals and dyes. Yeah. And it's making those healthy food brands more accessible to more people. Yeah. Right. And I think that's a good thing because they can lower the cost. Yeah. And I think just having healthy food be more accessible is a good thing. Yeah, I feel like that happened with Hugh Kitchen.

Yes, exactly. And I mean like, and I feel like Siette especially, they became so ubiquitous where they're in every supermarket, not just specialty, not just whole foods, not just Airwan, even before the acquisition. And I feel like you didn't really see like healthier chips, healthier tortilla. I mean, healthy. I'm using that loose. Corn is healthy too. Like, made with... Alternative. Like that everybody, you know, people can eat, whatever. You guys know what I'm saying. Yeah. And salsa's and hot sauces that are made with really nourishing ingredients that you would make in your home kitchen. I think that's really cool to see to turn

around an ingredient label and go, oh, this is what I would put in it if I made it at home. But I think they got a huge investment prior to the acquisition that enabled them to have a broader range. I was at a store yesterday and they had so many Siette products that I'd never even seen before. The puffs and the chiro thing. And I was like, whoa. I'm like, those churros. These are amazing. Yeah. Those are so good. But no, they have exploded. They've built such, you know, multiple amazing product lines and they're everywhere, like you say. Yeah, they're everywhere now. So. And I love to see a better for you brand that, you know, they're made by this wonderful family. They have such a good heart and soul behind them. And I have like a community. I always got the

PR things and they were so cute and like community oriented and I was just like so happy. I know. I know. I know. I know. I'm happy for them. Yeah. I'm happy for them.

Yeah. You guys are next. Yeah. Okay. I want to switch gears a little bit. Yeah. I'm looking at you both. You both have amazing skin.

Obviously, you guys are wellness girlies, but I want to know your your non-negotiables, skin, wellness, whatever it is. Okay. Emma, you have to your skin care routine is way better than mine. Yeah. It's really funny. I have. probably a 12-step skincare routine. Let's hear it. It's not super intense. I have very dry skin,

so I need a lot of moisture. I have this, like this kind of milk. It's not the Haley Beaver one, but it's another brand, kind of like a toner. Every single day I do face oil and guasha. Do you do guasha? Sometimes. I'm not super consistent. I'm very consistent with it. And I don't know. I feel like it makes a difference. I don't know for sure, but I think it does. And it's just a nice part of my ritual. Like, I enjoy doing that in the morning. I also do, you always laugh at me. I do an ice cube on my face in the morning just to wake up. I love it.

Oh, you do? Yeah. Okay. I feel like the first time I did that, you were like, what is going on? And then I thought you do. And then you got into it. Yeah. So the ice, the guasha, the oil.

And then I try not to wear too much on my face. I do a tinted moisturizer, sunscreen every single day of my life, rain or shine on my face. That is non-negotiable for sure. What else? Hair. I think just not washing my hair too much. I'm on like day five. I know.

I have like half a pound of crown affair. Yes. My hair right now I'm like, dry shampoo. Dragging it out a little. Yeah. Yeah. Oil, hair mask, trying not to do too much to my hair. I used to, I still heat style my hair sometimes, but I'm trying to wear it natural more

because I know it's better. This is not natural. But I do wear it natural more. It's more wavy. Yeah. Those are all great. I definitely am like a less is more. I feel like definitely not washing.

my hair a lot. I really, I don't wash my face that much. And I thought that was so weird. And then I saw that Alex Cooper from Call Her Daddy got all these, all this press about how like she doesn't wash her face. Wait, wait, you don't wash your face at night? At night, like I take off my makeup, but I often just do it with warm water. That's wild. I know, I don't wash my face. I never wash my face in the morning because it dries out my skin too much. But when I have sunscreen and makeup on, I'm doing an oil cleanse and a full face wash after at night. Well, no, I mean, I definitely do use face wash. And also my skin, I just came off a plane. So my skin's on amazing right now. I know that's good. Thank you. But I, and then I think, you know, also, we both just turn 30. I know you've been really open about

this. I've never gotten like Botox or anything like that. And I think, you know, I'm trying to just see how my face goes. Like, I think that that's a really, in this day and age, kind of a crazy thing to like, not do anything, but, you know, just I'm like, I'm, I'm kind of curious. I'm not saying I'll never do anything, but I think it's just, it's, it's kind of subversive now to like not do anything. To not do it. I'm glad you brought this up because I wanted to talk to you about the face taping. Yes. I'm really curious. I need to know your process because I also am trying to not do Botox or anything, and I feel like that seems like such a good alternative. It's pretty crazy. Yeah. How well works. Yeah. And I've said, I just did a podcast on this and I did it.

TikTok the other day too and I was like had you told me 14 months ago. Oh my gosh. This would be my my gosh. This would be my life. Taping my face at night, not getting Botox. Truly. Because before I was like high maintenance to be low maintenance. Yeah. Give me Botox once every however many months and then like I move on with my life. However, that does kind of create like a toxic cycle in my experience at least where you're like, oh, do I have a line here? Like, oh, I'm getting movement. Then you go back. And then you're like in this cycle of self-examination kind of. The tape, I really didn't have any expectations, and it's only the specific type of tape, the Japanese one. Okay, I need the link. Yeah, I'll send it to Shona. It's $28 for like a whole roll of tape. It's lasted me like two to three months. I don't do it

every single night. You cut it into the strips and you can tape it however, depending on what your concerns are. And it takes one minute. And literally you wake up with like smooth. glassy, amazing skin. I'm sold. People have sent me messages and left me comments and stuff who have never done Botox who are like 40 who were on the fence about getting it. And then they tried taping instead and they're like, everybody thinks that I got Botox. So there's no science behind it.

Everyone, I know like the anecdotal. Yeah. I mean, I wouldn't have believed it. And it's not like you can't make the exact comparison and it's not like a panacea. But especially for you guys, you guys are young. you definitely don't need Botox either of you right now. I feel like it'll just help to like kind of be preventative. Yeah. Totally. And that way. Well, I also, I don't know if there's any science to this, but I feel like there has to be something to when you smile and all those muscles in your face move,

it does signal to your brain to, you know, release dopamine and serotonin, like all of these happy hormones and chemicals. Yeah. And I feel like if your face never moves, then it's like it's almost this it has to be this feedback loop where your brain isn't getting the signal to like produce those. So I've heard both. I actually just had a Durham on the show who said like people are happier from Botox. And I'm like, really? I mean, I think like maybe because you feel good about yourself or whatever. For sure. More confidence. But I feel like I've heard that it helps with depression. Oh, I think it, I think for some people does. Especially if there's a lot of like tension. Yeah. I've heard like for tension headaches, things like that. But I also think in conversation with somebody like,

there's mirror neurons. Like we're feeding off of each other. And I had a lot of people tell me, like, it's so nice that your face moves now. It doesn't move that much. I don't know. I'm just not that expressive. But like before it was like frozen like a mask. And obviously you can do Botox and not be totally frozen. But like, no, I think it's nice to like be in conversation with someone. They're smiling. They have lines. Like they can express like their forehead. And I'm not anti-Botox or anything. But I do think that there is definitely a shift towards more natural, more conservative, trying different modalities. Like, I think people are being a lot more cognizant about what they're putting in their bodies, whether it's what they're eating, to feel good.

And, you know, a lot of people, unfortunately, like, are having side effects from these things. I don't know. And especially the younger population, Emma and I were at, I remember, we were at a restaurant and we were talking about this. And then the server came up to our table and she goes, just unprompted. She's like, I'm 22 and I'm the only one of all my friends. It doesn't have Botox and filler. And it's really hard for me to be in a room and be the only one that doesn't have it.

And I completely understand that. Part of the reason it's been easier for me not to is because none of my friends have it. Like it would be so, it's challenging if that's all the faces you're seeing. Of course. I think that's why social media is so tough for this because we're now conditioned to see a specific type of face on social media. And I think that definitely got to my head where I was like, wait, I need Botox, my face moves. But then when you really think about it, you're like, wait, that's okay.

I don't have to be frozen. Remember you being like, it's not even about the wrinkles. It's like my face moves. Yeah. That's good. You know, your face should move. Yeah. No, I love it.

I love seeing that. And I love watching like 90s and even like early 2000s movies. Crossroads. Oh, I haven't watched that one. But even shows. Like, I don't know if you guys watched the hills. That was like early 2000s. Their faces move.

I mean, if now, like, you would never see that. They were 20 years old. And I'm like, wait a second. I'm not used to seeing crow's feet and, like, forehead lines on 20-year-old. Same with, like, I made this example in an episode a long time ago. But my best friend's wedding, Cameron Diaz, Julia Roberts, they were like 24. Full movement, full, like, lines on their forehead. And I was just like, it's crazy that it's so jarring to see that, especially on, like, a younger person.

Yes. It's so wild. And I feel like this is one of those. I know we started talking about kind of diet culture in disguise. And I feel like it is one of these things where everyone feels like they have to look a certain way to conform. And maybe this one day will look back and be like, oh, my God, remember when all the, like, now how we look back in the 90s and we're like, remember how all the models were stick skinny? And that's whatever I wanted to look like. And now it's going to be like, remember when no one's face is moved?

Yeah. I mean, so many trends. like the no eyebrow, like tiny pencil thin eyebrows. And yeah, like the heroin cheek. I mean, I don't know. I think that like this runs a little deeper because like we're, again, condition to be like so afraid of aging. And especially women. I know so many women that say they feel invisible after 40, you know, and you're treated

differently and all of that. So it's like very deep seed. And I think Botox like, again, I'm not against it. And I think like used well, it's great. Like if you feel good about yourself, it's definitely preventative. Like, you can look fresh, longer. I also feel like you don't need it. I had the face taping woman, natural face Bible. She's like 48 or 49. She's never done injectable. She said, and she tapes and does massage. And she was like luminous and stunning. So I think there's more options than we think. There's more options than I think

with all these alternatives. And it's the same with eating or anything. It's all about just experimenting and doing what works for you. Like you say, not against Botox, not against doing anything that you want to do, but if you're interested in alternatives, why not try it and experiment like you did with face taping? And now you're like, wow, this works amazingly, right? And if the intention behind it is still wanting to feel good. Yeah. Yeah. If you're doing it just because everyone around you looks a certain way and you feel this pressure to do it to look that way versus, you know, it coming from a place of wanting to feel really good. And I even think rewriting that narrative of it's such a privilege to age. And I love to

to see all these makeup companies now kind of rejecting the like anti-aging. Why is everything anti-aging? Or concealer. Like it's all like cover up and anti-aging. And so I love to see all these makeup brands now being so much more celebratory about showing your face. Yeah. Yeah. And feeling good. And that's what you guys do. And I think like at the end of the day, that is the most important thing. Anybody who's ever been faced with any kind of of like challenge, health scare, anything like that, loss. Like, you know, you get to a certain age and you're like, thank God, like for my age, for my health, for the ability to feel good. Like that should be the most important thing. So I think it's amazing what you guys are doing.

Thank you so much. Tell everyone where they can find you. Give us all the 2,000 stores. Oh my gosh. I need them right now. So our coffee cake mix, which is kind of our hero product, is available at Whole Food stores across the U.S. and Canada. We're also at Arawan, Bristol Farms, Gelsons, Lazy Acres, Mothers. Hopefully a lot more coming soon. Yeah. We also sell our products on our website, so stellareats.com. And you can find us on Instagram at stellar.com and same with TikTok. Stellar.com. Amazing. Thank you. Thank you so much. I hope you enjoyed that episode. If you liked the episode, and if you like the show, in general, please take a second to rate, review, and subscribe. It goes such a long way in

supporting the show. Follow the show over on Instagram at well.pod. You can also follow my personal Instagram at Ariel Laurie. I'm always sharing great clips from the episodes, and we also have full episodes on YouTube as well if you want to watch an entirety. Thanks for listening. Please note that this episode may contain paid endorsements and advertisements for products and services. Individuals on the show may have a direct or indirect financial interest in products or services referred to in this episode.