Taryn Fixel knows how daunting it is for someone with dietary restrictions to shop at a grocery store, let alone trust that the food is safe to eat.
“It’s like walking through a minefield,” she says.
Fixel knows well the feeling of navigating fields—or in this case, aisles—peppered with deadly mines—or in this case, foreign foods. Years ago, she was diagnosed with severe irritable bowel syndrome, which is a fancy way of saying everything upsets her stomach.
This greatly reduced her dietary freedom and made her wary of everything she ate. No longer could she just pull snacks off the shelves without reading the label and checking the ingredients. For the most part, her diet was on a tight leash—so much so that she even walked around with a tag.
“Figuring out what I could eat became a meal-to-meal frustration,” says Fixel, a WeWork Gramercy member. “‘Is this gluten free? Dairy free?’ I started carrying a bright pink card that said, ‘It’s a pain in the butt, but I still love food. Here’s what I can eat and what I can’t: Dazzle me!’”
Unless you shop at an all-natural or organic food market, it’s challenging to find anything that isn’t masked with non-descriptive words that just mean sugar, fat, and chemicals.
Fixel was determined to find a way to delineate dietary categories and provide a common platform that anyone can use—irrespective of what your food restrictions are. This sparked the idea for her startup, Ingredient1, which puts an app in people’s hands and gives them the resource to find food and ingredients that meet their dietary needs.
The app, launched this year, lets you customize your search, so you can avoid foods that aren’t supposed to be part of your diet. It also lists all the nutrition facts, so there’s no room to wonder what you’re eating.
Ingredient1 is like a data-driven expert grocery clerk inside your phone that searches for food based on your preferences and personal taste. You can narrow down a food search based on dietary restrictions such as “GMO-free” or “dairy-free” and cross out things like “artificial sugar.” The app provides a highly curated database that carries triple the amount of ingredients and foods tracked by the USDA.
It’s used by supermodels like Karlie Kloss and by well-known chefs from the Food Network. Your more run-of-the-mill users include moms looking for safe, clean foods, as well as young professionals who are health-conscious foodies and people with allergies.
“People want clean, safe food, specifically ingredients they can understand, foods lower in sugar, and non-GMO,” says Fixel. “As we increasingly accept that diet is bio-individual—meaning there is no one-size-fits-all solution—people need an avenue to discover the best options for them.”
Ingredient1 provides a geo-location feature that identifies grocery stores near you that carry your food, so you don’t have to travel far to satisfy your sweet tooth or savory craving.
What makes the experience interactive is that you can save your new favorite items on a list that’s sharable with your family or co-workers. You can also keep track of trends, follow culinary experts, and see what holiday treats or everyday eats friends put up.
During the holidays and New Year, Ingredient 1 is “a treasure trove of inspiration for healthy, decadent main dish ingredients, side dish options, appetizers, desserts, and snacks,” says Fixel.
Fixel has been gluten-free for nearly seven years, which has been anything but a hindrance.
“Changing my dietary lifestyle inspired creativity with food choices,” she reveals. “I discovered coconut yogurt, taro root pudding, and creative ways to use ingredients. Who knew kabocha pumpkin could be used instead of flour in a roux, or that a key lime pie could be gluten and dairy-free without being delicious-free?”
Photo credit: Frank Mullaney