How important is a low GI breakfast?

Caroline: Hello Mathilde and David! You are the founders of the Nümorning brand, and we are delighted to have you with us along with Anna to talk about breakfast, a super important meal for which it seemed essential to us to create a lovely collaboration. We would like to know a little bit more about the origin of your brand and why you chose to tackle breakfast.

Mathilde: Hello Caroline, hello Anna, thank you very much for this invitation; we are super happy to be with you this morning and to be able to talk about such an important topic. So, to explain fairly quickly what Nümorning is, it’s a company that we created with David four years ago, in September 2017, and which, as the name suggests, is truly dedicated to the morning and breakfast. I lived in and traveled to English-speaking countries for a long time when I was younger, and that really familiarized me with other types of breakfasts that were very different from the bread/butter/jam that we are used to in France. All of that allowed me to discover things like muesli, porridge, and granola. Once I returned to France, I realized that there was a huge gap between the super industrial, super processed, super sugary offer that we all know (it’s the majority of what you find on the shelves), and on the other hand, there were a few products, but they were branded as "diet-heavy" or quite restrictive, like muesli with no added sugar, mainly just flakes that weren't very indulgent. It was super difficult, ultimately, to find something that fell in between, so something that was very indulgent, that you could take pleasure in eating, but that had real nutritional commitments regarding the degree of processing, as well as the amount and origin of the sugars used, and many other topics, like fiber and glycemic index—it’s a whole lot of things that are super important and which, until now, were not taken into account at all in the breakfast cereal segment.

Caroline: You started in a fairly artisanal way? By doing a lot of "homemade" production.

David: Yes, we initially started by doing our first tests in Mathilde's kitchen. Then, for about 8 months, we moved from place to place before having a place of our own. So we started in a pizzeria, in a bakery, we were hosted by a studio that gave cooking classes... It was an adventure at the beginning. Then we had our first "home" near Lyon, we had our little workshop, and we have since moved to a larger location, but we have always made it a point to make everything ourselves and not entrust the preparation of our products to others. This way, we can completely control what we do and be very flexible with recipes and manufacturing processes.

Caroline: Regarding the recipes, as Mathilde said very well. What is particularly striking, and what is hard to find, is that you really have an alliance between indulgence and gastronomy because we are talking about very balanced recipes: you avoid all stimulants, but there is also a very good sweet and indulgent balance while at the same time a low glycemic index. How did you work on all these recipes?

Mathilde: Yes, it's true, as you say, there were quite a few things to take into account. I am an agricultural engineer by training and I specialized very quickly. I worked in the agri-food industry before. I am also passionate about nutrition. I have two parents who are doctors, so these were subjects that fascinated me well before Nümorning. I already had the habit of studying ingredients a little bit without falling into psychosis because I have always loved to eat. That is still the case. I love to treat myself. I spent a lot of time on creating recipes and on choosing each ingredient, notably the choice of sugar, the choice of oil, things that might seem a little trivial. There are still many things to take into account. And so that was really a job from the beginning. It still is with every new range and recipe creation. Now, we have a person on the team who has joined us, who is also an agricultural engineer and who specializes in nutrition, who helps us go even further. And notably, we will talk about this later, with the launch of our Granola Digest, where there was a nutritional dimension that was super important. We really had to make the right choices. But voilà, it is something that we have been working on in-house from the beginning.

Anna: So, precisely, Mathilde, you mentioned the Granola Digest; can you tell us more about the recipe and this product in particular?

Mathilde: Yes, I had really wanted for a while to truly address the question of the microbiota and digestive problems. It’s something that affects a huge number of people. There is a statistic that says it affects one in two people, but I think, in reality, it affects many more. I think we have all had digestive disorders or problems; we all know that. So it is something that is fascinating. Not only because it affects so many people, but also because we realize, when we dig a little deeper, that the microbiota actually has multiple impacts on many factors of our health, our life, from psychological state to skin, to immunity, and of course, to digestion. Even if it is really mind-blowing when you take an interest in it, it is fascinating. But it is also for that reason that we call the microbiota our "second brain." So, it is truly a subject that is exciting to me, and I really wanted to address it with Nümorning. And so, we worked for many months with Anaëlle on the team on this new product, and our goal was to really offer something very complete that, as we explain, contains both pre- and probiotics. And so, to explain very simply and quickly, basically, probiotics are living organisms, good bacteria that line and exist in our microbiota or our organism. It represents about two kilos of our weight. So, it is not negligible at all. There are a huge amount of them. And prebiotics are those elements that will feed these bacteria. So, for our microbiota to be in good health, it relies on a fairly unstable balance. You have to take care of these bacteria and their food. In this granola, we provide both: we provide the probiotics through a particular strain that we have selected, which has had several clinical studies that have demonstrated its effects and which resists baking, which is very important for our manufacturing method. And prebiotics which are contained in various ingredients that we use—so oats with beta-glucans, as well as coconut blossom sugar. There is inulin, which contains a lot of prebiotics, but also apples, which we use with pectin, and almonds, which contain soluble fiber. All those ingredients provide different types of prebiotics that will feed the strain of probiotics that we add. Voilà, in short. So that’s the truly nutritional and technical side, so to speak. But obviously, we also wanted a product that remains super indulgent.

It’s also an essential point for us, as is the composition. We will never approve a recipe if it does not fully satisfy us at the taste level. And so, it is a vanilla granola with slivered almonds.

Anna: And the cacao maca. Can you tell us more about it?

Mathilde: We started from the observation that regarding cocoa preparations, even when going to the organic store because you have to be careful—organic doesn't mean better nutritionally—we almost always have sugar as the first ingredient. It is super complicated to find a cocoa drink that isn't loaded with sugar. So, that is really the starting point that pushed us to develop this recipe. And then, I discovered a whole world of adaptogenic plants a while ago, which have truly incredible virtues, of which Maca is a part. It is a plant that grows at altitude in Peru, which has energizing properties. But beyond that, it is a plant that, at the nutritional level, is super, super rich in minerals and is notably very rich in iron, calcium, and magnesium. So voilà, we selected this plant for this drink, to add a health aspect in addition to the super comforting side of cocoa. So, it is a recipe that contains fair-trade organic cocoa, coconut blossom sugar—which is our sweetener for all the recipes where we use a sweetener—which is an unrefined sweetener, with a low glycemic index and also very rich in minerals. 20% Maca, which is not negligible, and we put a tiny touch of cinnamon, which is really, very, very subtle. It’s really to give a little "something extra" to the cocoa notes.

Caroline: It has a slightly spicy taste, but warm. With the cinnamon, it is ultra-pleasant.

Mathilde: And at the same time, it remains very mild. People love its cocoa-maca sweetness. You should know, for those who are wondering, that Maca has a somewhat roasted taste. And so, in the cacao-maca, I think that softens it, precisely that it softens it. But in any case, it doesn't at all clash or give any taste other than cocoa.

Caroline: Well, in any case, congratulations for making the link. Thanks again to David and Mathilde, because honestly, as someone who has researched breakfast a lot to try in particular to feed my children properly in the morning with things that stick to the ribs and that contribute to many things, it is complicated. And I do think that there was a gap to be filled on this subject. It is still an essential meal for hormonal balance, since it is in the morning that we can be the most destabilized, notably the level of insulin in the body, since after rest, it is the worst time to eat sugar. It is better to do it at the end of the afternoon where insulin is metabolized better. And effectively, finding in these two products the cacao-maca, which allows avoiding stimulants that are recognized endocrine disruptors, and the granola, which is super interesting with its probiotics, richness in fiber, and low glycemic index—these are really things that contribute with indulgence to preserving a good hormonal balance, to take good habits with these products. We are really delighted to test this with you. Thank you, thank you.