ketochow2.0

Random Photos and Fun (plus an update on KC2.0)

This entry is part 137 of 139 in the series Ketogenic Soylent

We went camping over the weekend. As usual, we ate a lot of bacon, sausage, and eggs (with hash browns for the kids, who aren’t doing keto). We were at Willard Bay, a freshwater reservoir that was built adjacent to the Great Salt Lake by erecting a dike – essentially a dam around the entire area. The water is relatively warm and it’s not very busy. The main thing is: it’s close to us and since we were taking a camp trailer PLUS wave runners (super awesome 1996 Polaris ones I got for cheap on Craig’s list – hey, they work) I didn’t want to go very far. I had Keto Chow for lunch at the water (which was far more tasty than the sandwiches the kids were eating), as did my wife (see photo above).
2016-08-12-12.17

Last night my wife pointed out a box one of my kids has drawn on. Apparently, he thinks we need to introduce a new flavor. I especially like the logo and the QR code.

2016-08-15-20.39

This morning my “daily movie quote” calendar was full of awesome. Soylent Green is people; Keto Chow is ground-up low-carb hippies.

2016-08-16-10.36.50

Finally an update on Keto Chow 2.0: Yesterday I went to visit the co-packing place to pick up a new batch of flavor tests. Overall they’re excellent. Vanilla, Strawberry, and Chocolate are awesome (strawberry needs some more pink color which is unrelated to taste but whatever). The Cookie and Cream flavor was buttery tasting with not enough “oreo” aspect, maybe needs some chocolate? It’s still good though, more like a butter cookie. The Chocolate Peanut Butter is interesting.

The Chocolate Peanut Butter is interesting. The facility has an employee that’s allergic to peanuts. This means that using actual peanut flour at that location isn’t an option. The first solution is to have a different facility do the packaging of the Chocolate Peanut Butter, we’re looking at that. The second solution is to use a peanut butter flavor that doesn’t contain any of the problematic proteins. We tried some of that and there was a slight hint of peanut taste but nothing like what we currently get with the chocolate peanut butter flavor using real peanut flour. With this being my #1 favorite flavor you can be assured that I will not compromise on anything less than “this is yummy enough to drink for a month straight, I want MOAR!”. He also gave me a mocha (I think coffee anything smells like burnt toast so I got a guy testing it for me). The Snickerdoodle flavor wasn’t ready yet, I’m thinking about adding a Salted Carmel and maybe a Banana flavor – dunno. In all, it’s a definitive step in the right direction!

By |2016-10-13T07:27:32-06:00August 16th, 2016|Site or Store Stuff, Keto Chow, On Tour|1 Comment
Read More

1.5 update, Sample All the Things change, and UPC Barcodes

First off – All of the active flavors in all the sizes are switched over to Keto Chow 1.5 with acacia gum (which is good since everybody seems to really like it). There are still a few Butter Cream Toffee samples that are the old formulation but that’s because it’s been discontinued and I can’t make it in the new formulation.

I woke up this morning and had an idea for the “Sample all the things” bundle that has one of each of the 8 currently active flavors. We’re pre-packaging them into an actual bundle (in a quart sized zip-loc bag if you’re curious). This will make a bunch of stuff easier, especially filling orders since most of the samples we sell are part of that bundle. It even got its own label! I also changed the product to be a “simple product” so it’ll no longer break out the names of each flavor, it’ll just show up as the one line item in the cart.

I bought 250 UPC codes a few days ago and added them to the labels, if you want to see them check out this page – it has both the week and day full labels. I tested the day ones by scanning them into MyFitnessPal – I’ll probably do the same with the week ones shortly. In case you’re curious (and also to seed the UPC search engine results) here are the codes and their corresponding product:

760537021847 Day – Chocolate Fudge
760537021854 Day – Chocolate Mint
760537021861 Day – Cookies and Cream
760537021878 Day – Gourmet Vanilla
760537021885 Day – Peanut Butter
760537021892 Day – Rich Chocolate
760537021908 Day – Snicker Doodle
760537021915 Day – Strawberry Blast
760537021922 Fish Oil Capsules
760537021939 Minerals – for 10lbs
760537021946 Minerals – 1 week
760537021953 Sample – Chocolate Fudge
760537021960 Sample – Chocolate Mint
760537021977 Sample – Cookies and Cream
760537021984 Sample – Gourmet Vanilla
760537021991 Sample – Peanut Butter
760537022004 Sample – Pina Colada
760537022011 Sample – Rich Chocolate
760537022028 Sample – Snicker Doodle
760537022035 Sample – Strawberry Blast
760537022042 Week – Chocolate Fudge
760537022059 Week – Chocolate Mint
760537022066 Week – Cookies and Cream
760537022073 Week – Gourmet Vanilla
760537022080 Week – Peanut Butter
760537022097 Week – Rich Chocolate
760537022103 Week – Snicker Doodle
760537022110 Week – Strawberry Blast
760537022127 Sample all the things
By |2016-10-13T07:27:36-06:00July 1st, 2016|Site or Store Stuff, Keto Chow|Comments Off on 1.5 update, Sample All the Things change, and UPC Barcodes
Read More

Keto Chow 1.5 update – almost there; Finally missed reps on StrongLifts

This entry is part 6 of 6 in the series Weight Lifting

So first the good news: The roll out of Keto Chow 1.5 is nearly complete. Rather than list what is updated to 1.5, I’ll just list what isn’t:

Weeks

  • Chocolate Fudge

Samples

  • Banana and Butter Cream Toffee (as they’re discontinued but I still have some)
  • Chocolate Mint
  • Snickerdoodle
  • Vanilla
  • Cookies & Cream

Days

  • None. They’re all switched over.

 

Now for the bad news: Up until last night I hadn’t missed a single rep doing StrongLifts. It was inevitable that I would and it finally happened. Last week I was able to finish the full set of Overhead Press doing 95lbs but doing 100lbs was too much for me, even resting 5 minutes between sets:

2016-06-15 16.04.57

Well, life moves on. The kids asked for Strawberry and Peanut Butter keto chow today.

By |2016-10-13T07:27:37-06:00June 15th, 2016|Keto Chow, Site or Store Stuff, Weight Lifting|2 Comments
Read More

Keto Chow 2.0 and 1.5 update

This entry is part 2 of 139 in the series Ketogenic Soylent

We got our second round of flavors for Keto Chow 2.0 yesterday. I talked to a different co-packer who had super awesome pricing but their minimum order quantities were astronomical. Going off the last 3 months of sales we would be ordering a year’s worth of Rich Chocolate at the low end and 2 years worth of Strawberry at the high. Given expiration dates I think that’s a bit over-optimistic. So I’m working on nailing down order amounts and costs with my original co-packer still.

As for 1.5: we’re closer and closer to having all the flavors and sizes switched over to 1.5. If you’re getting flavors/sizes that aren’t on this list and want 1.5 you’ll need to drop a note in the order comments and we’ll try to fulfill your request. Here’s what’s switched over so far:

Weeks

  • Vanilla
  • Rich Chocolate
  • Chocolate Mint
  • Strawberry
  • Cookies & Cream

Days

  • Everything but Chocolate Peanut Butter

Samples

  • Rich Chocolate
  • Strawberry
  • Chocolate Fudge
  • Chocolate Peanut Butter

I’ve reduced the price of the other flavor samples, also samples are the only size with Banana and Butter Cream Toffee still in stock.

By |2016-06-09T10:18:33-06:00June 9th, 2016|Site or Store Stuff, Keto Chow|Comments Off on Keto Chow 2.0 and 1.5 update
Read More

Keto Chow 1.5 status update

This entry is part 129 of 139 in the series Ketogenic Soylent

Since posting about it last week the most frequent question I’ve gotten is “what flavors have switched over to 1.5 already?” Well, that depends on the size you’re talking about =) We have a large supply of samples that were made before the switch in all flavors but two that are still available – those will be 1.0.4 for a while. This includes the banana and butter cream toffee ones we still have. Although I can’t find those flavors anymore we still have samples available, I’ve even discounted them and entered inventory into the site so if you’re really wanting to grab some you can.

Anyhow, here are the size/flavors that are completely switched over to 1.5. You can request the ones that haven’t switched yet and we’ll try to make sure you get 1.5 (though I can’t guarantee we have all available in 1.5 yet).

Samples (1 meal) that are 1.5

  • Strawberry Blast
  • Chocolate Peanut Butter
  • Chocolate Fudge

Days (3 meals) that are 1.5

  • Strawberry Blast
  • Cookies and Cream
  • Chocolate Fudge

Weeks (21 meals) that are 1.5

  • Gourmet Vanilla
  • Rich Chocolate
By |2016-06-02T10:34:46-06:00June 2nd, 2016|Site or Store Stuff, Keto Chow|Comments Off on Keto Chow 1.5 status update
Read More

Keto Chow 1.5

This entry is part 128 of 139 in the series Ketogenic Soylent

TL;DR: swapped psyllium husk for acacia gum, added more xanthan gum resulting in better texture and improved bowel… stuff.

It’s been some time since there was a major formulation change in Keto Chow, it’s been stable for over a year. As part of the progress towards Keto Chow 2.0 I’ve updated the recipe. On paper it looks like a nominal change: replaced one ingredient and increased another. Functionally it’s a significant revision.

For those unaware: I’m working on getting Keto Chow mixed and packed in a co-packing facility. There are a bunch of reasons for this, primarily it will increase the amount of stuff I can make since it’ll no longer be such a manual process. It will also free up a lot of time =). In order to do this I’m needing to find replacements for the problematic ingredients that can’t be found in 100kg+ sizes (the vitamins, protein, flavoring) in addition to finding a co-packing facility. I’m in the latter stages of getting the vitamin mix replacement, the second revision of the protein+flavoring should be coming sometime in the next week or two and it’s almost time to “for realsies” sign papers with co-packers.

Several weeks ago I went to a trade show with various food ingredient vendors. I knew my Potassium and Xanthan Gum supplier would be there, the people I’m getting the vitamin pre-mix from had a booth and I was surprised that the lady I buy peanut flour from was there too (“hey, I buy your stuff… wait a minute, I buy it from YOU!”). I was looking for an alternative vitamin pre-mix supplier but was also on the lookout for protein sources and especially a solution to my Psyllium Husk problem.

Psyllium Husk provides fiber (and is the primary ingredient in metamucil if you are wondering) as well as acting as a thickener; it grows in India. All psyllium husk is shipped from India and while getting it in small quantities in the United States is easy, buying a palette worth is difficult without going directly to the manufacturers in India and buying an entire shipping container worth. Don’t get me wrong, a shipping container in my back yard would be kinda cool but I didn’t want to go that route. I found a company in Chicago that would sell psyllium by the 25kg/55lb bag but their supplies were sporadic and if they were out of stock I was out of luck and would need to go back to buying 12lb bags from AllStarHealth. No bueno.

At the show I happened upon one booth for a company specializing in dietary fibers. So I asked if they had psyllium husk powder and the guy asked me what I needed it for. Honestly that was the best response: instead of just saying “no”, he figured out what my “pain point” was. Turns out that guy in the booth was doing dietary ketosis, said “oh you don’t want psyllium, THIS is the stuff you want to use for keto” and so I was introduced to Acacia Gum.

Acacia Gum – Features and Benefits. This was sizeable enough I decided to put it into a separate post so it’s easier to refer to, go ahead and read it, I’ll wait.

Now, as I said earlier: Psyllium Husk also acts as a thickener and while Acacia thickens liquid a little, replacing psyllium with acacia left the mixture rather watery. I tried some other thickening ingredients but came back to Xanthan Gum which I was already using. I upped the amount almost 3x and the thickness was just right.

I considered Keto Chow 1.0.4 to be exceptionally smooth with practically no gritty texture (especially compared to the stuff I had in the past that was full of coconut flour and chia seeds). Apparently psyllium husk powder does have some texture/grit to it because the change was notable. Keto Chow 1.5 has no discernible (to me and those I’ve had test it) texture. It’s seriously like somebody melted a milk shake. It also mixes better: there’s no need to do a second mixing 5 minutes after initial mixing to prevent the fiber from accumulating on the bottom in clumps. Acacia Gum is also nicer to your intestines and seems to eliminate some of the bowel issues people were experiencing  when initially starting. For lack of a better way to say it delicately: you should be able to put more trust in a fart being just a fart, especially at the beginning.

We do have some of the old recipe still on the shelves but most of the flavors will be transitioned over to 1.5 in the next week or so. If you don’t notice the texture at all in the older formulation it won’t be a big deal but if you’re anxious to get the new stuff just put a note in your order comments and we’ll do our best to send the new stuff. We have most of the week packs in 1.5 and a few of the day flavors. Samples are all currently the old stuff.

By |2016-10-13T07:27:40-06:00May 27th, 2016|Site or Store Stuff, Keto Chow, Ketogenic, Soylent|3 Comments
Read More

Old flavors, new flavors, dead flavors.

This entry is part 127 of 139 in the series Ketogenic Soylent

My wife just reminded me that I need to post something about the state of the flavors of Keto Chow. The ones I can get have diminished significantly in the last while:

  • Piña Colada: discontinued
  • Smooth Banana: discontinued
  • Butter Cream Toffee: discontinued
  • Cinnamon Bun: discontinued
  • Mint Chocolate: not certain, most of my suppliers have removed it from their sites, and it’s getting harder and harder to source. Might not be long for this world =(

We still have some stock of a few of the discontinued ones (mostly samples and days) but we’ll be watching the stock levels closely. The ones I can still get easily:

  • Rich Chocolate
  • Vanilla
  • Strawberry
  • Snickerdoodle
  • Chocolate Fudge
  • Cookies and Cream

So I guess it’s good timing that I’m getting closer to having my own flavors for Keto Chow. Speaking of that: today I received the first 5 samples of the protein + flavoring that I’ll be using in Keto Chow 2.0. I’d be mixing it up right now but we made 12 meals worth last night and don’t have any clean blender bottles available (not to mention I need to drink down the supply in my fridge). Closer and closer every day!

By |2016-05-27T12:09:27-06:00May 5th, 2016|Ingredients, Ketogenic, Site or Store Stuff, Keto Chow|2 Comments
Read More

Day 079 – 100 days of Keto (Chow)

This entry is part 65 of 81 in the series 100 days of keto
  • Weight: 205.3
  • Blood ketones: 0.2 mmol/L

Yesterday evening I spent some time discussing the possible packaging for “Keto Chow 2.0” with my wife. The company I’ll likely be using can package into “Stick Pack” and tubs/bottles, they aren’t able to handle the stand-up pouches I’m currently using (“yet”) so it’s likely I’ll be using tubs for bulk size and stick packs for the samples. The question now comes to what to do for the days – I don’t have a good solution for that yet. A smaller “day” tub would cost almost as much as the large bulk one, both the cost of the container and the cost of putting it into the container (but x7). I think the solution is going to be to up the volume of the sample size (the “single meal”) enough that the cost of 3 meals is lower than what the “day” used to cost – and just eliminate it entirely because it wouldn’t be necessary.

We’re also hitting some issues with the bulk size container. 7 days/21 meals for most of the flavors is a little too much to fit into a half-gallon size bottle. It fits into a standard 1 gallon (2 lb of protein) size bottle but there’s a bunch of extra space at the top. Since Peanut Butter is the “largest” flavor by volume I used it as my “worst case scenario” trial and found that I could actually get 10 days/30 meals of chocolate peanut butter into a gallon size container. Likely that is what we will do: no more “weeks” – they would be 30 meal/10 day packages. A round gallon size container is an awful waste of space as far as shipping goes so we’re looking into using “square” bottles instead, like these:

Square

This all presents a problem though: Shipping. We currently use a LOT of USPS flat rate boxes; they’re free(ish) and offer low shipping rates where we don’t have to care how much stuff weighs, only how big it is. With these larger, fixed dimension, containers we would be able to fit half as many bottles into the same box as the week bags. A Medium FRB would hold 1 instead of 2-3. A Large FRB would only hold 2 bottles instead of the current 4 weeks (20 days worth compared to 28). It’s likely we’ll have to find our own boxes that fit 1, 2, 3 and 4 of the bottles. It kinda sucks but will be better for FedEx and possibly UPS shipping with all 3 services using the same boxes. Time will tell.

We also hashed out the flavors that will be part of the initial round: Chocolate, Vanilla, Chocolate Peanut butter, Cookie & Cream and Strawberry.

Flavor Graph

Those first five represent 73% of the total sales of Keto Chow all by themselves, so I think it’s a good starting point; especially with the apparent discontinuation of the different flavors by Dymatize. I found some Chocolate Fudge and some Butter Cream Toffee yesterday but still no joy with Banana and Piña Colada, it may not be long before They go out of stock in the weeks, though we have a nice inventory of days and samples. Cinnamon bun is currently down to just samples remaining, the last day pack sold on Saturday.

By |2016-10-13T07:27:44-06:00March 22nd, 2016|100 days of keto, Site or Store Stuff, Keto Chow|Comments Off on Day 079 – 100 days of Keto (Chow)
Read More

My own custom vitamin Pre-mix

This entry is part 120 of 139 in the series Ketogenic Soylent

For those that didn’t know: I’m working towards significantly scaling up my operation. Like full-on industrial manufacturing using a co-packer. Today I finally got pricing for a vitamin/mineral pre-mix. There are a bunch of reasons for this but to name a few:

  • Everything in every room in my house has Keto Chow powder on it. Like literally everything. Rooms on every floor have it on every surface, it’s kinda nuts. Ever done drywall work and had the dust all over? yeah, that’s easier to clean up (I know this because I just did that in the living room).
  • My production capacity is currently limited by how much time I can devote to it, I can’t handle much more order volume than I’m currently experiencing. This limits the business in general. I have refrained from doing any marketing at all to prevent crushes in orders I can’t handle.
  • Haven’t had an issue with quality control other than 2 batches that didn’t get the right amount of mineral pre-mix. One was several months ago and the other was last week, this last one we caught before any were shipped out; anyway – I’d like to improve the quality control so it’s even better than what I currently have going on.
  • I’d like to be able to take a vacation this summer =)

Anyhow several months ago I contacted a few vitamin pre-mix people to see if it was possible for them to make a replacement for the Kirkland Signature Multi-vitamins I’m currently using in my mix. The few places that responded told me they had a minimum order of 100 kg. Back then I balked and let the inquiry die because 100 kg in 10g/week increments would make 9,293 “week” (21 meal) bags of Keto Chow! Now that I’m looking into co-packing I need to be able to get all my stuff in massive bulk quantities so I’m not grinding several hundred pounds of vitamin capsules, it would be a full time job. In my inquiries about co-packing I was put in touch with a place that does nutrient pre-mixes. While hashing out the mix we eventually ended up incorporating several of the ingredients into the pre-mix. Turns out several of the ingredients are particularly hygroscopic and needs to be paired with something to keep it dry. So if you want Choline Bitatrate you have to add Calcium Phosphate or it won’t last 6 months.  We have the formulation formalized on paper and I’ll be getting a sample in 2 weeks or so to test out. In the end we’re replacing

  • Calcium Citrate/Magnesium Citrate/D3 powder
  • Calcium Phosphate
  • Choline L-Bitatrate
  • Kirkland Signature Vitamins
  • Vitamin MK-7

The best part is it actually costs slightly less than what I’m currently using ( $0.20859/day compared to  $0.27655/day) even if I get it in the smallest quantity I can order. If I scale up to 2500kg I can save even more =).

Friday I finally got a sample of psyllium husk that I can get in 55lb and 2000lb bags, it was more finely ground than the NOW psyllum powder, I’m super excited about it! Still don’t have pricing yet though =(

The next step that I’m working on is getting a replacement for the Dymatize protein powder I’m using. It’s gotten harder and harder to find the various flavors and some (Pina Colada, Banana, Cinnamon Bun) I haven’t found in several weeks and don’t think I ever will be able to get again – 2 of my suppliers have indicated the Pina Colada has been discontinued by the manufacturer. I’m working with a lady locally that formulates flavors to come up with suitable replacements. Hopefully I’ll have this ready in the next month and before the Dymatize goes completely unavailable (which I doubt Rich Chocolate and the other really popular flavors will disappear but I haven’t been able to get them in 10lb boxes for months).

So what does this mean for the future of Keto Chow, the recipe? Well, I’ll have Keto Chow 1.0.4 open for anyone to use still, that’s not changing. I’m also going to open the new recipe (tentatively called Keto Chow 2.0) but it likely won’t be something a regular person can make themselves since it’ll require a custom vitamin pre-mix along with using a custom protein powder and custom flavorings. For the most part you’ll still be able to make 1.0.4 yourself but whatever flavors I come up with (along with the expected ones I’m planning on trying for plain and savory flavors!) will only be available from me, but one of the goals in all this is also to reduce the cost and therefore the price of the stuff I’m selling. Better quality, easier to get, less expensive – that’s the plan.

Don’t hold your breath unless you can do so for a long while but that’s the plan for the future. At some point I’m going to check out some of the manufacturers I found that specialize in aseptic packaging of mixed liquids. Pre-mixed Keto Chow in a bottle with the cream and oil already mixed in and doesn’t require refrigeration? Yeah that would be awesome!

By |2016-10-13T07:27:52-06:00February 15th, 2016|Site or Store Stuff, Keto Chow|9 Comments
Read More
Toggle Sliding Bar Area