It seems like an odd bagel, however a new product known as the Better Bagel has greater than twice the protein of the customary one and a fraction of the carbohydrates—roughly as a lot as two slices of banana, in accordance to BetterBrand, the meals tech startup that created it. (An everyday bagel might need between 50 and 60 internet carbs, or the carbohydrates which might be totally digestible, versus the 5 in certainly one of the new bagels.)
“I began to have a look at all the innovation that was taking place round us,” says Aimee Yang, founder and CEO of Better Model, which introduced in the present day that it closed a new $2.5 million fundraising spherical led by Alexis Ohanian’s VC agency, Seven Seven Six. “If we will make beans into meat, then why can’t we use meals tech to allow a world the place we will eat freely and to change the meals that we crave the most, which might be the worst for us, into meals which might be truly good for us?”
Yang began researching the technological prospects whereas in enterprise college, after which labored with meals labs to formulate a new recipe and strategy that might replicate, as intently as doable, the choices you’d discover in a customary bagel store. She needed to start with a bagel, she says, as a result of bagels are notoriously excessive in refined carbs. As a result of refined carbohydrates will be digested rapidly, they make blood sugar spike, and have been linked to diabetes, coronary heart illness, and weight problems.
Low-carb bagels exist already, however the startup needed to create a better-tasting various. The primary ingredient is modified wheat starch, not flour. “You get that texture, that chew, to the place you don’t really feel such as you’re consuming a meals the place you might have to compromise,” says Yang. Enzymes additionally assist with taste and texture.
Yang is tight-lipped about the particulars of the firm’s strategy, however says the meals science signifies that the whole course of is completely different, together with how the bagels are baked. “In the event you took our dough to any producer, any bakery, they might have completely no thought what to do with it,” she says. “Each step of the course of—anyplace from temperature to emulsifying, proofing, moisture ranges, etcetera—has been simply so fine-tuned on this product and customized, that we’re the solely ones who can truly use the dough and have it come to the product that we’re aiming to make.”
The corporate is nonetheless refining the product, however needed to launch it and proceed to iterate as the workforce will get suggestions from clients. (Californians are extra probably to say it tastes indistinguishable from a common bagel than bagel purists in New York, Yang says.) For now, it’s accessible direct to client via the firm’s website—much less sustainable than strolling to the nook bagel store, although BetterBrand offsets the carbon footprint of transport.
