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Healthy instant noodles may seem like an oxymoron, but not to Chris Langwallner.
Earlier this year, the co-founder of NamZ, a food science startup, introduced WhatIf, a range of nutritious and sustainable foods.
In addition to smoothies and soups, it also included those old staple instant noodles, but reinterpreted to be good not only for your health, but also for the planet.
Their NoodleZs are made from moringa and Bambara peanuts, varieties of what Langwallner calls future fit crops – nutrient-rich crops that can withstand anticipated climates and grown on degraded land, require less water, but produce good yields.
Unlike standard instant noodles, which are dehydrated by frying and using palm oil, NoodleZs are produced using a proprietary technology, inspired by that used to dehydrate toilet paper, which involves steam and air at high speed.
The result? A 70 percent decrease in fat content.
If 10 percent of the instant noodles sold were made with the technology, it would save US $ 95 million (S $ 129.1 million) in palm oil products, Langwallner says.
Launched in June, NoodleZ has sold like hotcakes. The noodles are available online at www.whatif-foods.com. Even before the launch of the WhatIf brand, the noodles, produced in a factory in Malaysia, were already being sold to restaurants.
The fact that it had a clear social impact also helped NamZ win a grant from the DBS Foundation’s Social Business Grants Program last year.
Born into a farming family in a village outside Vienna, Austria, Langwallner – who has worked in countries like England, Russia, India and China – wasn’t always that great on health and sustainability.
In fact, the entrepreneur, who studied agronomy and food science, once tipped the scales at 130kg, in large part thanks to work devoted to making unhealthy snacks tasty and addictive through taste.
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This is the second in an eight-part series of interviews about social entrepreneurs making a difference.
But over time, his conscience gnawed at him.
“The way I saw the development of agriculture, food processing and the use of marketing gimmicks to lure people into unhealthy eating … At some point, I didn’t feel good anymore, I felt terrible.” says the 48-year-old-old man, who is married to a food scientist.
They have two children, ages 18 and 21.
The nasty things he learned about the agricultural industry and the havoc it wreaks on the earth’s natural resources added to his misery.
“Since we started the interview, we’ve probably lost hundreds of arable land soccer fields,” he says with a sigh.
So, he founded NamZ in 2014 with food innovator Peter Cheetham to create a “food science company that dedicates all our work to creating a healthier planet and healthier people, one meal at a time.”
He spent the first half of his career in the food industry making “junk food taste good.” What was the breaking point?
Becoming a father was one of the defining moments. It led me to be more sensitive to what we put into our body.
In my day job, I needed to make more delicious sandwiches than before. That meant a lot of fat and salt and adding flavors that have little to no nutritional value. I would go home and discourage my children from eating the food I made.
When you’re building a career, it can be difficult to stop and reflect. But this career has also allowed me to learn, understand, accumulate knowledge, know-how and experiences, to form a well-founded opinion about where we are going in the industry, about what is wrong and what is right.
In these times, it is necessary to revolutionize an industry from the outside rather than from the inside. Inspiring change from within can be an impossible undertaking as the status quo is comfortable. So, I decided to do it with a startup company.
In a start-up, you start over. You create new rules, redefine what is normal, accept what you learn to be right and wrong, and challenge the status quo.
Are you trying to start a food revolution and are you starting with noodles? Why?
Instant noodles are a paradox food. They were meant to fill stomachs after World War II, but they provide very little nutritional value. Today, more than 100 billion servings are eaten each year.
Our challenge was to make the unhealthy foods we know and love so nutritious. And convenient.
Why the name WhatIf?
Our story began by asking “what if”. First, it was, “What if we could find a way to make instant noodles healthy?” So the question was, “What if eating noodles was healthy and good for the planet?” That’s still not good enough. “What if noodles could do all of these things and uplift farming communities?
At every step of our journey, asking ourselves “what if” has led us to have a better vision of what the future of food could be. By asking ‘what ifs’ around every corner, our instant noodles are not only healthier today, they are also good for the planet and empowering small farmer communities.
And it would not be the last time we ask ourselves this question.
At the heart of what you do is this concept called the “nutritional paradox.” How would you explain that to a seven year old?
Here’s what he would probably say: “Listen, you know that eating at fast food restaurants and snacking is not healthy for your body. The best thing you can do for your body and mind is to eat as many types of plants as possible.” .
“And because so many people eat the same thing, what we eat is hurting the people who grow our food and hurting the planet.
“Let’s go to the kitchen and play with colors, textures and flavors. Let’s put together 25 plants like peas, fruits, beans, lentils and vegetables, or take apart. Experiment. Have fun.
“You will see that we can eat many tasty things, with colors like the rainbow, in addition to the food that we have grown to eat.
“And this is how you will help farmers and your planet.”
Give some terrifyingly compelling reasons why people should think about the way food is grown and consumed now.
There are many, but here are a few.
How and what we eat is harming us: Approximately 2.3 billion people on our planet are obese or overweight, another two billion have nutritional problems, 800 million go hungry every night, while the rest of us, around 2.5 billion people, we have achieved something acceptable “well-being”. This means that seven out of 10 people suffer from what they eat.
As for how the way we grow our food is damaging our planet? Just 12 crops and five animals make up 75 percent of all the food we eat, while just three plants account for 60 percent of our calories.
In most regions of the world, more than 70% of fresh water is used for agriculture, which contributes to one third of all human-made greenhouse gas emissions globally.
Lastly, 77% of arable land is used to produce livestock feed, which represents only 17% of all the calories we consume.
The way we grow our food is also weakening farming communities: 2.6 billion lives are directly related to agriculture, 74% of which are the poorest of the poor.
Every minute, we have 23 football fields in degrading lands, but every minute, 30 football fields in areas of biological importance are deforested.
Intensive agriculture has left degraded land behind while encroaching on the remaining and retreating forests of our planet.
As a consequence, we see more massive climate refugees around the world.
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