EAT THIS really started because I needed it myself.
I was dealing with an autoimmune condition and started doing an elimination diet. I wasn't thinking about opening a business. I was just trying to figure out why I wasn't feeling good and what foods were affecting me.
That's when I started paying much more attention to gluten, seed oils and ingredients, and I began understanding how certain foods affected me personally.
The problem was, once I changed the way I ate, I couldn't find the food I actually wanted to eat.
I grew up in Bulgaria, and I was very lucky. I grew up with amazing home-cooked food. We cooked. We sat down and ate real meals. Food had flavor, sauces, herbs, vegetables, meat. It was comforting.
So when I started trying traditional meal-prep food, I just couldn't do it.
The same chicken, rice and vegetables over and over again. Everything felt like it was made to hit a number on a nutrition label instead of making you excited to eat.
I remember thinking, am I supposed to eat like this for the rest of my life?
I wanted meatloaf. I wanted shepherd's pie. I wanted pasta, steak, salmon and mashed potatoes. I wanted sauces and dressings. I wanted the kind of food that makes you happy when you open the container.
At the same time, I couldn't cook everything myself every day. And going to a restaurant every day isn't realistic. It's expensive and it takes too much time.
I wanted something in the middle.
Real home-cooked food without having to cook it myself.
Even the packaging mattered to me. I was putting so much thought into what I was eating, and then I would see prepared meals packaged in plastic that you're supposed to reheat. For me, that didn't fit with what I was trying to accomplish.
That's why we chose compostable containers. If I'm going to care this much about what's inside the container, I want to care about the container too.
I kept looking for a place that did all of this, and eventually I realized, the place I was looking for didn't exist.
So I created it.
Then later I met my husband, who has severe celiac disease. That made the mission even more important because I saw firsthand how hard it can be for someone with celiac to completely trust food prepared outside their home.
That's why today EAT THIS is a 100% gluten-free dedicated kitchen. There's no wheat in our kitchen. We don't cook with seed oils. We use avocado oil, and we make our food from scratch, including our sauces and dressings.
But I never wanted EAT THIS to become “diet food.”
I'm Bulgarian. I need my food to taste good.
You don't have to have celiac disease. You don't have to have an autoimmune condition. You don't have to be on a diet.
Maybe you're a mom who doesn't have time to cook tonight. Maybe you worked all day. Maybe you need a quick lunch. Maybe you simply want meatloaf but don't want to spend two hours making it.
Come in, open the refrigerator, grab something that looks good and go.
That's EAT THIS. It's the place I was looking for myself and couldn't find.