S6 Ep26: Home Cooking Made Fun, Quick, and Easy with Daniela Kratz
“It’s so important to have an antidote that shows us how beautiful it can be to make food at home and how actually joyful and easy it can also be. Because in the end, this will be healthier for us but also for the planet.” — Daniela Kratz
Cooking can be a therapeutic and satisfying experience, but it's not always easy to find the motivation. Between finding the right recipe, shopping for ingredients, and having to clean up after the meal, it’s no wonder so many people opt for takeout. But what if, there is an “antidote” so that we can enjoy the cooking process just as much as the final product?
Founded by Daniela Kratz, Farmhouse Lab is all about celebrating the joys of sustainable, plant-based eating. Their goal is to help inspire a plant-based revolution from the comfort of our own homes. Not only are they passionate about ensuring that every ingredient used is consciously sourced and crafted with care, but they also choose their partners with great attention to detail. They want their customers to know exactly where their food comes from and how it's made, so they can feel good about every meal they enjoy.
Tune in as Justine and Daniela share how simplicity can make our food of superior quality. They'll also dish on the key ingredients for a delicious, healthy salad. Plus, they'll delve into how Ayurveda's guiding principles can help us find balance, and the secret to bringing more joy to our mealtimes. Don't miss out!
Connect with Daniela:
Daniela Kratz is a mom of two who calls the SF Bay Area home. In 2016, she decided to shift gears and launched Farmhouse Lab’s specialty dressings.
After years of working in sustainability leadership for a large global corporation, Daniela realized that what inspired her was helping individuals make healthier and more sustainable food choices. She noticed that most dressings on the shelves contained yucky stuff like preservatives and artificial flavors.
So, she decided to take matters into her own hands and create high-quality, sustainably sourced, and delicious dressings. As a busy mom, she knew firsthand how hard it can be to whip up healthy meals on the go. Combining her love of entertainment and passion for sustainability, Daniela created a business that promotes a healthy lifestyle.
Episode Highlights:
01:20 Passion for Fresh Food
05:18 Food, Health, and Art
08:05 Home Cooking Made Easy
14:34 The Principles of Ayurveda and Food
18:33 Bringing More Joy Into Food
Tweets:
Home cooking can feel like an endless task, but it doesn’t have to be. Whip up some culinary magic in your kitchen with minimal effort and maximum enjoyment with @jreichman and @farmhouselab Founder, Daniela Kratz. #podcast #entrepreneurship #socialgood #inspiration #impactmatters #NextGenChef #EssentialIngredients #FarmHouseLab #Ayurveda #FunctionalFood #dressings #salad #homecooking
Inspirational Quotes:
03:18 “Less is more. Simplicity, but high quality.” —Daniela Kratz
05:32 “Food that looks beautiful is more appealing and eventually gets assimilated better by our bodies especially if you do have a connection.” —Daniela Kratz
09:37 “It's so important to have an antidote that shows us how beautiful it can be to make food at home and how actually joyful and easy it can also be. Because in the end, this will be healthier for us but also for the planet.” —Daniela Kratz
09:54 “Preparing a meal— there's joy in that. Understanding where your food came from— there's joy in that and it's also healthier.” —Justine Reichman
10:29 “Part of making that meal healthy and joyful is the community you bring together.” —Justine Reichman
15:28 “If we know what our innate state is and we check in with every day where we are, we can see how we can balance back into our own individual optimal balance. It’s very much needed these days.” —Daniela Kratz
Transcriptions:
Justine Reichman: Good afternoon, and welcome to Essential Ingredients. I'm your host, Justine Reichman. Today with me is Daniela Kratz from Farmhouse Lab.
Welcome, Daniela.
Daniela Kratz: Thank you so much, Justine.
Justine Reichman: So glad to have you here. It's been so great, the last eight years, getting to know you, and having you as a neighbor just around the corner.
Daniela Kratz: Yeah. When I came here, it's so close by.
Justine Reichman: We've looked on the map before. Was it as short as we thought?
Daniela Kratz: Yeah. We'll definitely have to take the dogs on a walk.
Justine Reichman: I know, we definitely have to. But I'm really excited for our viewers and our listeners to get to know a little bit about you, and learn a little bit about what you've been building these last few years. Because I've been watching it, I've been eating it, tasting it and just loving it. So I think it's time that we let the viewers and our listeners learn a little bit more about Farmhouse Lab.
Daniela Kratz: Well, it's such an honor to be here, Justine. Thank you so much.
Justine Reichman: Well, it's a pleasure to have you here. So if you would just let everybody know what Farmhouse Lab is.
Daniela Kratz: I started Farmhouse Lab in 2016 after finishing my career in corporate, and it is really the combination of my passion, my professional expertise and the desire to build something from the ground. I'm always really fascinated about food that's delicious in the first place. I'm a foodie in the first place. But I love when food has a function, and I am really, really fascinated about when produce is fresh, delicious and is good for your health. And that's why I became very, very interested in my late 20's with the science of Ayurveda, which is a holistic science similar to traditional Chinese medicine. They're like both around 5000 years old, and just have lasting wisdom about food that we can incorporate into our daily life to improve our health and to prevent disease to a certain extent, at least.
Justine Reichman: I couldn't agree more. I have been a foodie my whole life. Yes, I love food. So I think I was too. I was telling my parents what I wanted to eat, how I wanted to eat it, where we should go eat. Very picky. And the quality was so important. I knew what I liked and what didn't taste good, and how it made me feel. And I think I learned that from my mother, actually.
“Less is more. Simplicity, but high quality.” —Daniela Kratz
Daniela Kratz: That is huge. I do want to talk more about that later. But what a wonderful gift of your mom to teach you that at an early age. I sure have done a lot of diet mistakes when I was young. I remember as a teenager, I was eating chocolate and tons and masses. And I have a teenager now at home. And so trying not to be too strict about that. Because I think the truth is, balance isn't everything. But circling back to Farmhouse Lab first is also why I came up with the name I think says a lot about what Farmhouse Lab is. I grew up in Germany. I came to the United States at age 29. And really influenced by the cooking of my grandmother and my mother and doing things from scratch and slow food. Also my mom was busy and working full time and learning to work with limitations that we have. But Farmhouse because I'm a big advocate of slow food and cooking from scratch, making food from scratch. Less is more. Simplicity, but high quality. And then the Lab because I like to experiment with food. I want people, friends, and family who gather at my table to have fun with food. That's why I think I came up with sauces because you can blend a variety of ingredients. And what I do is I blend a variety of high quality oils with vinegars and artisan ingredients. And it's a very fun work to do and I get to support other makers that make products that can be included in my dressings.
Justine Reichman: Yeah, your dressings are amazing. I also follow you on Instagram and all your socials. I look at the beautiful salads that you make. Oh, my God, I want to copy them. The colors are vibrant. And I'm sure that that's a lot to do with the fact that you use local ingredients, what's right and what you're picking today because it's in season. I'm sure that it's thoughtfully done, but they are beautiful. Your dressings, again here, Sunny Avocado, one of my favorites. In our household, we use it quite often. So tell me a little bit about the choices you've made to create some of those salad dressings.
“Food that looks beautiful is more appealing and eventually gets assimilated better by our bodies especially if you do have a connection.” —Daniela Kratz
Daniela Kratz: Yeah. That happened really quickly because I always like a variety of flavors in my house. I also believe, like what you just said, that we eat with our eyes, with other senses. And food that looks beautiful is more appealing, and then eventually gets assimilated better by our bodies especially if you do have a connection. So the first start of making a beautiful salad is indeed going to a Farmers Market if you can, or get some farm fresh produce. And nature makes these things already beautiful. And I mentioned simplicity. If you cut it in a certain way, it doesn't need to be super fine and super detailed. But if you present the produce in a certain way, and that can be done in a very quick fashion, then you already have the foundation of a beautiful salad. The foundation of all of my dressings is an extra virgin olive oil from California because I live in California, and locality is very important for me when it comes to food next to seasonality. So the foundation is an extra virgin organic California olive oil from a family farm. Then I blend other amazing oils, and green pumpkin is a good example because I missed pumpkin seed oil on the American market. It's not easy to find, especially a good quality, until I found this amazing grower that takes Austrian pumpkin seeds planted in Oregon organic soil and makes an exceptional dark green, high quality pumpkin seed oil that in itself was a good food award. But Sunny Avocado and Green Pumpkin, when you compare it, you use it for very different salads and food groups. I always recommend Sunny Avocado with lighter green leafy lettuces versus Green Pumpkin more for the dark green kale or something. I like Green Pumpkin with nuts, with cheeses if you do dairy. And Sunny Avocado goes really well with fresh crunchy vegetables and fruit.
Justine Reichman: So one of the things you've mentioned to me is that you really want to cultivate an environment where people can utilize what you create to cook at home to inspire people to make it easy. And so why is that important to you? Does that go back to when you were growing up with your family? Is that because you feel it's healthier to eat at home? Is it a combination of both?
“It's so important to have an antidote that shows us how beautiful it can be to make food at home and how actually joyful and easy it can also be. Because in the end, this will be healthier for us but also for the planet.” —Daniela Kratz
Daniela Kratz: Thank you for asking that. That's really where I'm very passionate about where the core mission of Farmhouse Lab lies. Food is so much more than just the food itself. You can eat a healthy carrot, but it doesn't do any good to you if you do not have an oil or vinegar that helps you assimilate it. The carrot is also more healthy if you enjoy it in community. It is healthier for you if you met the farmer who grew the carrot, or if you picked the carrot from your backyard. It is also better for you if you cook in your kitchen with family or by yourself in a mindful, calming, relaxing, inspiring environment. The simple carrot can be a nourishing meal if you combine all of those facets and not just have a raw carrot by itself. And that's what I want to instill with Farmhouse Lab is the ease of application of using produce, making it more digestible, enjoyable, flavorful. But also, the lifestyle aspect is that I think with the growing takeaway and packaged food market, I want to set an antidote, and we all need this in our lifestyle and definitely ordering takeout. But it's so important to have an antidote that shows us how beautiful it can be to make food at home and how actually joyful and easy it can also be. Because in the end, this will be healthier for us but also for the planet.
Justine Reichman: I couldn't agree more. I was preparing a meal. There's joy in that understanding where your food came from. There's joy and that it's also healthier. Because so often, when we go to a restaurant, we don't know what kind of oil they're using, whether they're sunflower, safflower, canola, whatever. What are the odds you're going to ask them where their oil is from? And I think when we do take out, often it's in front of the television, or it's around a coffee table. It's not communing around a table and having a conversation. I think part of making that meal healthy and joyful is the community you bring together. Cooking in the kitchen, and preparing together, and going to get the food and the whole process of it brings joy, it's healthier, and it's all around just creates a better environment. So for me, I couldn't agree more. I look forward to the holidays for that reason, because we carve out that time.
“Preparing a meal— there's joy in that. Understanding where your food came from— there's joy in that and it's also healthier.” —Justine Reichman
Daniela Kratz: The holidays, but also everyday life. Just one example, two kids, 14 and 9. And as a mom, as a working mom, I understand the pressure that a lot of people have everyday when the question comes, what's for dinner? You feel like, oh, my God. Kid A has a different preference, and kid B, and then the husband, maybe one something completely different. So it is challenging for all of us. But one simple way that I'm trying to break this down is to involve the kids, involved with family. And I like that. That helps them to make decisions, it frees me up. But also on top of all of this, I have some shared time with them together, and they have a connection to the food. It will make them more likely to eat the vegetables that I would like them to eat. And yes, it's a little bit more work than ordering in, and everybody gets to decide what they want to eat. But without talking even about trash that we're producing, etcetera. It's just the community, it's the time together, it's a shared value and possible time of connection. Then also what you said, the power of control over what we're eating and what we're choosing.
Justine Reichman: So aside from families, you also have single people?
Daniela Kratz: Absolutely.
“Part of making that meal healthy and joyful is the community you bring together.” —Justine Reichman
Justine Reichman: So single people often get left out of the equation, and nobody wants to cook for themselves. I can tell you, when I was single, I felt like it was a lot of effort to cook for myself. I always wanted to invite friends over if I was gonna cook. Otherwise, I'd order in or meet a friend out. But this is an antidote for that too, because it makes it easier. It doesn't feel like the community's end. But it does allow us to make healthier meals for ourselves. And in a way that's easy and accessible. So it doesn't fill the whole equation because you can't build a community necessarily on your own. But it does allow us to make a healthy meal for ourselves in an easy, accessible way.
Daniela Kratz: For sure. And then also, there's a lot of people out there, I think they are lonely and they would like to try something. So even just the joy of making food, and then bringing a little bit over to your neighbor. That is an amazing thing. And it's a beautiful gift that you don't just do for your neighbor, but also to yourself. And yeah, I hope to make it easy to make it joyful, to make it inspiring because my dressings are for people who don't want to make any compromises of ingredients. So it's typically the person who uses olive oil, and lemon juice, and maybe garlic and makes their own dressing. But that gets boring over time, and then you want a different flavor. And so mostly, those are the customers that are drawn to Farmhouse Lab.
Justine Reichman: I love the mission behind this. And the other thing that we talked about or that you touched on when we started our conversation was that you started to talk about Eastern medicine. I don't want to butcher it, but I believe it was Ayurveda.
Daniela Kratz: Correct. God, okay, the science of life.
Justine Reichman: The science of life. And I'm curious, what role that played in the process of these different salad dressings, and where your thoughts were when you were making them? When I look at them, you'd never know it so I'm curious if you could talk a little bit about that.
Daniela Kratz: Yeah. No, thanks for asking. What I love about Ayurveda is that it teaches us to be mindful everyday. It also makes us aware that we're all individuals. We are all very unique. What is good for one person does not necessarily need to be good for the other person. What is good for me in summer does need to be good for me in winter. And it gives you tools to understand everyday what your current state is that you are in, mentally and physically. It also gives you tools to determine what your innate state you were born with. And that's always the starting point, it's called Prakruti. And then the state that we're currently in, and that may be very different this evening compared to what it is now. That is called the Vikruti. So if we check in everyday, if we know what our innate state is and we check in with us everyday where we are now, we can see how we can balance ourselves back into our own individual optimal balance. I think it's fascinating, it's so true and very much needed these days. I incorporate it everyday and leave some flexibility for cooking everyday so I can modify and check in with what I need. Meal planning is a very useful tool. And I use it to some extent, but I always leave some flexibility to make decisions ad hoc what the family needs, what I need.
“If we know what our innate state is and we check in with every day where we are, we can see how we can balance back into our own individual optimal balance. It’s very much needed these days.” —Daniela Kratz
Justine Reichman: Did that play a role in your dressings?
Daniela Kratz: Yeah. So all of these dressings, and I have a blog post, could be categorized into whether it is Vata, Pitta or Kapha pacifying. Vata pacifying would be, Vata is an energy of air and space, so naturally very light qualities. And in balance, it sparks a lot of creativity and flexibility. But if it's out of balance, people tend to feel frazzled, and then they need to have more grounding, and so they need to balance it with earth energy. So if you take my Sunny Avocado dressing, it has very light qualities. It's great to counteract heaviness, sluggishness, versus Green Pumpkin that has a lot of earth elements. It is great to counteract the vaquita aggravation that I've just described if you want to feel more grounded. And then also, of course it's important what you're combining it with. Some of my Instagram posts already contain recommendations. I made a sweet potato recipe, we're using Green Pumpkin and explained how this can be very grounding and beneficial for you on a windy day where there's a lot of air energy and you feel very frazzled. And then Red Sunflower is our spicy dressing. So it has a lot of natural Pitta qualities. And you can use that if you feel low energy, if you're feeling a little lethargic. You combine it with, one thing that comes to mind is the red cabbage, for instance. I just posted a recipe on that so check out my blog post if you're interested and see how each dressing can be categorized. And in the future, I do want to talk more about how you feel on a certain day and what you can cook.
Justine Reichman: I'd love that. And I'm curious, I know that you guys have the dressings and I know you have the salt. Will we be seeing more products and more skews from you in the future?
Daniela Kratz: Yes, that's a dream. So Farmhouse Lab, because I had the opportunity to talk about my mission today. Farmhouse Lab can be everything that helps us make food with more joy at home everyday. And I have a number of ideas starting from different flavors that I would like to introduce dressings, but also seed mixes, superfood powder mixes. I have salt, but maybe I'm thinking about also adding pepper and many other things, including lifestyle products and decorative items for table settings.
Justine Reichman: Okay, well, I'm very glad that you shared that with me. I'm super happy to be able to bring this to our community. And we look forward to having you here again soon, and following you and your Farmhouse Lab to see where things go.
Daniela Kratz: Thank you so much for having me. And also thank you for everything you do with NextGen Purpose. It's great to follow all the podcasts, and you're doing interviews. It's very important.
Justine Reichman: Thank you. Well, it's been great watching you. We've been growing together these last few years. Thank you, Daniela.
Daniela Kratz: Looking forward to more.
