How Safe Sam's Sarted

 
In a world where there are options for what seems like everyone's dietary needs to meet their goals and keep them on track, why isn't there one tailored to people who are trying hard to recover and get healthier from their eating disorders? Back in the summer of 2016, I went to go visit a friend who was being treated for an eating disorder and the idea for Safe Sam's®
was born. I knew if I was going to do this, it had to have a lot more components than your average snack or protein bar.
    1. This should consist of items from a meal plan that people in recovery are encouraged to follow: carbohydrates, a fruit, vegetable, proteins and lipids (list of foods in front of me)
    2. Some way to help with going to the bathroom (how about prunes? They can also serve as the fruit exchange)
    3. Something to help with bloating and digestion (ginger could work)
    4. Very easy to chew for people who either lost teeth, or have extremely sensitive teeth due to binging and purging (cannot make hard as a rock, got it)
    5. Should to be: vegan, soy free, dairy free, gluten free, rice free, nut free, so virtually everyone can eat it as well (well there goes more than half of the combinations I just came up with)
    6. Not overwhelming and scary in size and something people would feel comfortable and "Safe" eating (must make no bigger than size of palm)
    7. Containing nothing "diet" such as artificial sweeteners (while I'm at it I might as well cut out anything GMO as well)
    1 year and 4 months and almost burning my kitchen down several times later...
     
    Some years later....
    It came time for me to start actually manufacturing and selling these and I started to face a problem. I had these bars priced at $34.99 for two boxes. To a lot of people, that is a lot of money for snack bars and I'll admit, I thought so too. What a lot of people may not realize was that shipping and the shipping supplies was the culprit to blame. The fact that these bars contained no preservatives required me to ship them in special packaging. Now I know what you’re thinking, “You could've just gotten these into a grocery store and alleviated shipping all together!” I kept thinking that if Safe Sam's started to become known as a snack bar for people in their recovery, would people then feel anxious buying it at the grocery store if their eating disorder recovery was something they wished to keep private? I wanted to be able to have a way that these can come directly to you and I needed to figure out a way to do so.
    I was on a flight with my mom to Chicago when I looked at her and said, "Why don't I just share the recipes?" and the book bakED was born.  At the end of the day, this was about creating something to help and make it accessible and affordable and I was determined to make that happen for you.