Project AnaPur: Long story short
Let me first introduce myself
My name is Stepan and I come from the beautiful old-fashion European city of Prague, Czech Republic where I studied at Business University and where I currently work in marketing field.
Apart from traveling, snowboarding and hanging out I enjoy cooking too. The thing is however, there is mostly never enough time for cooking and because I stay at the office for most of the day preparing some of my perfect dishes (I have up to 5 of them in my portfolio :) ) has become quite difficult for me.
Apart from traveling, snowboarding and hanging out I enjoy cooking too. The thing is however, there is mostly never enough time for cooking and because I stay at the office for most of the day preparing some of my perfect dishes (I have up to 5 of them in my portfolio :) ) has become quite difficult for me.
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| The beautiful city of Prague. The place, where AnaPur was born. |
Why I started this project
Ever since I was studying there was never much time, money or suitable equipment to prepare something proper. Everyone who went to college knows that proper cooking is usually not the thing you want to do in the evenings. Sure, eating out with friends is fun and restaurants in Prague are mostly not expensive at all (besides beer is cheaper than water in restaurants. Nice right?), but eating out all the time isn’t the best thing to do if you want to avoid becoming fat lazy tired dude.
Despite my knowledge about healthy diet and intentions to eat healthily the reality as well as for many “office rats” is sadly different. Often there is just not enough time to get a decent meal, not enough time to sit and have a lunch and definitely not enough morale to prepare some good meal in the evening or snack for the next day. So I often ended up eating sandwiches, pizzas or other junk food next to my computer at the office with no joy from the taste and tiredness after finishing this heavy “lunch”.
Everyone knows it’s not good for them but let’s be honest: everyone eats like a pig from time to time. Some do it even on a daily basis and everyone knows it’s just not right.
I wondered if all this was necessary.
If I really cannot eat a healthy and convenient meal without a necessity of germinating seeds over night to cook them at 6 a.m. before leaving to work, if eating out fast or buying artificially flavored pseudo-food for which you would need a PHD in chemistry to understand all the additives inside is really the only option of a busy office guy.
I wanted a simple and healthy way to deal with this. Is that so much?
Then it hit me.
Despite my knowledge about healthy diet and intentions to eat healthily the reality as well as for many “office rats” is sadly different. Often there is just not enough time to get a decent meal, not enough time to sit and have a lunch and definitely not enough morale to prepare some good meal in the evening or snack for the next day. So I often ended up eating sandwiches, pizzas or other junk food next to my computer at the office with no joy from the taste and tiredness after finishing this heavy “lunch”.
Everyone knows it’s not good for them but let’s be honest: everyone eats like a pig from time to time. Some do it even on a daily basis and everyone knows it’s just not right.
I wondered if all this was necessary.
If I really cannot eat a healthy and convenient meal without a necessity of germinating seeds over night to cook them at 6 a.m. before leaving to work, if eating out fast or buying artificially flavored pseudo-food for which you would need a PHD in chemistry to understand all the additives inside is really the only option of a busy office guy.
I wanted a simple and healthy way to deal with this. Is that so much?
Then it hit me.
In 2013 I found out about the Soylent project and it all made sense. It was daring: an instant powdered supermeal that is healthy? This doesn’t make any sense. But yet it seemed to have all you need and nothing more and that was exactly what I was looking for. As the product was not available in Europe I started to put together my recipe using diy.soylent.me. Several months and many nutrition articles and books read later I finally invented something I could call my future food: the AnaPur
Why I called it AnaPur? Simple. Based on Hindu mythology Annapurna was a goddess who was able to nurture all those who are in need. So I decided to call my shake shortly AnaPur.
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| Annapurna Devi |
Months went by and I was improving my recipe constantly. Every version of AnaPur was better and tastier. Relatives, colleagues and friends were observing me in a suspicious way and waited for my sudden collapse but it never happened.
Actually I felt better, less tired, less concerned with what to eat any given day and also quickly forgetting all the cons of preparing food- standing in lines while doing groceries, stuffing dishwashing machine, taking out garbage, etc.
Actually I felt better, less tired, less concerned with what to eat any given day and also quickly forgetting all the cons of preparing food- standing in lines while doing groceries, stuffing dishwashing machine, taking out garbage, etc.
Why I have digressed from the Soylent path
Reading many reviews, nutritionist recommendations and another ton of books and articles I realized that some of the ingredients used in Soylent and my AnaPur were not really beneficial in the long run (to be precise I’m talking mostly about vitamin supplements and maltodextrin). What now? I heard about the fancy new all organic powdered food from Finland called Ambronite, but it was crazily expensive and again not easily available in the EU. Therefore Invention of the new AnaPur “2.0” recipe began and this time I was starting from scratch on a solo journey.
My goal is to achieve sustainable recipe of powdered food without necessity of adding liquid oil, without any artificial additives such are mineral and vitamin supplements, without additional emulsifier and without maltodextrin which I consider a semi-artificial and unhealthy thing as well. I mentioned this little funny thing about Prague earlier: Beer is cheaper than water in restaurants. So I thought to myself:
• “If beer in Prague can be cheaper than water, why an all-natural balanced meal couldn’t be cheaper than a regular dish?”
So I started to dig through hundreds of natural ingredients of some I hadn’t heard before. Focusing on raw, least processed and vegan foods with little or no gluten and couple months later I finally made it. I redesigned the recipe to an all-natural, non-additive, completely powdered and nutritionally balanced food which costs just 10€ a day. And 10€ for 2000 balanced calories and natural vitamins is a better result than what I was hoping for.
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| AnaPur has a green color thanks to chlorella, spirulina, and many other green ingredients |
The new recipe has little in common with Soylent or the old AnaPur. It contains more than 20 ingredients. Cereals, husks, dried fruit and herbs, each with its specific role. Read more about what AnaPur contains. Essential nutrients are not the only thing AnaPur contains. We know what our body necessary needs but why not add some other beneficial substances to it? Thanks to all natural ingredients, AnaPur contains not only all essential vitamins, minerals, proteins, carbs and fatty acids, but also a fair amount of fiber, antioxidants and phytosterols which have been proved to have a beneficial effect on our health regulating the risk of cancer, decreasing cholesterol and helping detoxification of body.
