Our Approach
Rooted in Nutritional Science
At Heritage Foods, our mission is to provide you with everyday food that is safe to eat, affordable, and delicious. We strictly follow four key nutrition fundamentals when we craft recipes, select ingredients, and prepare your meals. We believe that following these principles will help you promote health, not disease.
Low Glycemic Load
Each of our menu items is designed using ingredients that produce an overall low glycemic load to give your body a break from the blood sugar and insulin roller coaster. To accomplish this, we use no grains, no sugars, low sugar fruits and vegetables, and only natural sweeteners including stevia and erythritol. All of our foods are also gluten free as a result.
No damaged fats
When heated, many common fats break down and produce appreciable amounts of trans fats, which promote inflammation in our bodies. We cook and saute with healthy fats like coconut oil, organic butter and grapeseed oil that are heat tolerant to minimize trans fats in our foods. We also select only wild and grass fed proteins to insure that our fats do not include antibiotics and other medicines commonly used during mass production of animal protein.
Healthy Fatty Acids
Excess Omega 6 fatty acids promote inflammation in our bodies. Some plants (and animals that eat plants like corn) contain a lot of them. Where possible, we select plants and proteins that contain lower levels of Omega 6 fatty acids and add naturally occurring Omega 3 fatty acids (which are anti-inflammatory and found in foods such as flax seed meal) to adjust the balance close to its natural 1:1 ratio.
Low pesticide residue
WEven low levels of pesticide residue on produce can have appreciable inflammatory impact on our bodies. We rely on regular testing by independent laboratories to guide us in avoiding produce and other ingredients which have high pesticide residues.In the standard American diet, all four of these fundamental rules are broken. Heritage Foods changes this.
Sugar in many forms is added to nearly all foods; high glycemic load ingredients like wheat and rice flours are added to most foods; fruits and vegetables with appreciable pesticide residues are common; delicate oils are regularly heated to produce trans fats; and ingredients with high Omega 6 fatty acids are the main sources of fat and protein in our supply chains.
Heritage Foods follows these fundamental rules strictly so you can eat our foods feeling confident and you and your family are promoting health, not disease.
The broad impacts of these nutrition fundamentals continue to be explored and understood. Many other possible rules are being debated by scientists now. Our team follows those debates closely and will adjust the Heritage Foods approach when appropriate.