SUPERNUTRITIOUS,
CHEMICAL-FREE SPECIAL FOODS

The following article by Debra Lynn Dadd
is excerpted and adapted with permission from
EVERYTHING NATURAL, Inverness CA 94937

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Karen Slimak is the founder of Special Foods!TM, a company which makes common food items from unlikely food sources. She began the company to cater to people with extensive food allergies, and in the process has discovered new properties of flours from root vegetables. She has patents pending on over 1000 processes and products in the food art area. Who knows, one day we all may be eating malanga fettucine! On a recent trip to Washington DC, I visited with Karen to get some concept of what her "special foods" were really like.

KS: I began my career as an environmental scientist, and I have a master's degree in environmental chemistry. For many years I was a consultant to government agencies, principally the US Environmental Protection Agency and to industry, on environmental chemicals and toxic substances. I now use this background in my private consultations with people, and in my research for Special Foods!TM. I study the natural properties of unusual foods, and then learn to use these properties in new ways.

EN: I am trying to figure out how you possibly turn white sweet potatoes, cassava, malanga, yam, lotus root, and all those other exotic foods into food products such as pancakes, ice cream, mayonnaise, breads, "nut butters" and other foods that we recognize and eat every day.

KS: We have found that it just simply takes understanding the properties of the new flours, and developing new food technologies that utilize the properties of the new flours. In the past, when people have tried to make flours from vegetables, they have tried to use the techniques that have traditionally been used for wheat, i.e., they try to get rid of the fiber and so forth. While the substances essential for the baking properties of wheat flour are not found in the seed coats and other fibrous portions of the flour, I have found that the opposite is true for flours from root vegetables; in other words, the substances essential for the baking properties of vegetable flours are found in the fibrous portion of the flour and require both the starchy components and the fibrous portions of the flour for successful baking. So in previous flours, the removal of fiber not only reduced the nutritional properties of the flour, but also destroyed the baking properties too. We keep all of the coarse, fibrous material in our flour and mill it to as fine a material as possible, and keep everything together.

EN: So instead of removing the fiber to end up with a refined flour...

KS: We make a flour that is extremely fine and has everything in it.

EN: You're just grinding it up more.

KS: That's right...and leaving everything in. One of the differences between sweet potato flour and wheat flour is that the protein value of the wheat is not closely associated with the fiber, but in many root vegetables it is.

EN: So something made from white sweet potato that would be high in fiber would also be high in protein. Is this like a concentrated form of sweet potatoes? If you were to eat a cup of this would you have more nutrition than if you ate a cup of sweet potatoes?

KS: Oh, absolutely. You'd have about four times as much.

EN: But how do you turn a white sweet potato into a flour?

KS: First we scrub it and peel it. During peeling we hold the root vegetable under running water so that any dirt or mold is swept away and does not come in contact with the freshly peeled surface. After peeling the final rinse is in distilled water. After peeling the root vegetables are shredded, placed on glass trays in a dehydrator, and when dry are pulverized to a flour. The carbohydrates in the flour are complex, not simple, carbohydrates, the fiber level is high, and the protein level is higher.

EN: So it's supernutritious food from a natural source without chemical contaminants.

KS: That's right. And with processes and techniques and products developed that use no extra chemicals at all. In fact we use flour, water, occasionally an oil, and occasionally a leavening agent. And that's it. If we can't make a good product with these limited ingredients, we don't make it.

EN: Now are these all organic, yes?

KS: Chemical-free is a better word. All of the root vegetables we use are free from chemical contamination as far as we can determine. I've never seen a bug on a malanga yet. The vegetables come from areas where they grow naturally and prolifically without the need for fertilizers or pesticides. Our foods are also very clean in the sense that they do not contain any extraneous matter. You know that the government has standards that specify the number and sizes of rodent pellets, insect bodies, dirt and rocks that are allowed in flours, peanut butter and other food products. Our foods are all hand processed, so we can control this.

EN: Does each food product taste different?

KS: Yes. What is interesting is: The actual taste of each flour and of each product made from each flour is different. So if someone doesn't like the taste of something as a noodle, they can try another product, because the flour will taste completely different in, for example, a cookie. You would think that all of the products from one flour would taste the same; however, when you think of the many ways wheat is used, you realize that wheat also has many differences in taste and texture. Using sweet potato flour as an example, the noodles taste ever so slightly like sweet potatoes, the imitation nut butter tastes like peanut butter, the cookies taste like peanut butter cookies, and the bread tastes simply bland. This is cassava bread...

EN: This is really good! I could see this toasted.

KS: Oh, yes. You can toast it; you can use it for sandwiches; you can do everything. It's really neat to think that this good bread is actually more simple to make than wheat bread, far simpler! You use only cassava flour, baking powder, and a little bit of water.

EN: I'm really shocked! I knew you were doing this but I couldn't quite get that it would really be like bread or that it would really taste good.

KS: This is sweet potato imitation nut butter, and it has nothing in it but white sweet potato flour and oil.

EN: It tastes like peanut butter!

KS: Doesn't it? Isn't that wild?

EN: It also tastes like it has a little molasses in it.

KS: No, that's just the sweet potato, it's natural flavor gives it a slightly sweet taste.

EN: This is really interesting. It has the same texture as peanut butter. This is incredible!

KS: Now this is the white sweet potato milk.

EN: It tastes like milk!

KS: We've got some even more exciting things planned for the future: a line of chemical free oils, ink for fountain pens from sweet potatoes, and a line of coffee substitutes, in addition to toasted cereals and about another ten flours and their products!

When someone places an order, we send recipes that are appropriate for their order. For example, if someone orders pasta we send instructions for cooking and using the pasta. When someone orders a flour, we give them a free recipe packet. Here's one for lotus root flour. It contains recipes for ice cream, milk shakes, imitation mayonnaise, milk, dumplings, hush puppies, pie crust, tortillas, cookies, doughnuts, French toast, waffles, bread, imitation corn bread, muffins, and pancakes. They are all recipes that we have developed, tested, and use regularly. You can see that the directions are very simple, and if people follow those instructions exactly, then they will have good tasting products they can use.

THE END