Deux is Taking Supplements and Turning Them Into Irresistible Treats
This article originally appeared on Clean Eating
A scoop of raw cookie dough is delicious, but as we're all aware, snacking on spoonfuls of raw cookie dough isn't exactly a nutritious treat. Fortunately, Deux is a new kind of cookie dough that makes it possible to dig in and feel great.
Sabeena Ladha, the founder of Deux, created a better-for-you cookie dough. And yes, you can totally eat it raw. Her innovative approach to cookie dough is more than a treat - it's a way to get more essential vitamins and minerals. Deux is the kind of functional food you'll want to eat.
In fact, it's so good, you can enjoy it first thing in the morning. "We’re kind of trying to normalize eating cookies for breakfast," Ladha shares.
Deux was born out of a love of junk food - and a love of wellness
"I grew up in a really small town in Texas... I ate the standard American diet. I ate Kraft mac and cheese for dinner, Oreos for breakfast," Ladha says. "I just lived with this junk food surrounding me... My parents are immigrants. They didn't necessarily know what good-for-you foods were and what they consisted of, and we didn't read any nutritional labels."
When she began working for Frito Lay right out of college, Ladha was essentially selling "junk food" for a living. Yet at the same time, she was also starting to focus more on her own health and wellness.
"I was on my own for the first time and taking charge of what I was eating. I had a blog (before blogs were cool), and I wrote about smoothies and cryotherapy; I got Pilates certified," Ladha says. "It was kind of a dissonance that I had, almost like a guilt of, 'Wait, what am I doing?' I'm telling people to eat healthier, and then I'm here selling bad-for-you foods."
Deux brings together Ladha's love of those not-so-nutritious store-bought foods and better-for-you functional ingredients. It's kind of the perfect marriage, capturing all of the flavors you love in classic cookie dough with health-minded ingredients.
It's cookie dough, but better for you
Deux isn't just a delicious lineup of doughs, drips and other foods. Every one of the treats offered includes functional ingredients, featuring everything from ashwagandha to elderberry to maca to mushrooms.
These nutritional powerhouses were inspired by the COVID-19 pandemic. Ladha explains, "[During] COVID... I was taking a ton of supplements, taking zinc and elderberry and vitamin and turmeric and my probiotics. I got to a point where I was taking about 10 pills a day." All of those supplements left her searching for a better alternative.
"The original concept [of Deux] was a Famous Amos cookie, that kind of version of a multivitamin or supplement," Ladha says. "It morphed into this edible, bakeable cookie dough."
But it wasn't just a whole bunch of functional ingredients in an easy-to-eat package that Ladha wanted to provide. "Oftentimes healthy food tastes like cardboard, especially anything vegan or gluten-free," she points out. "It doesn't taste very good, and then indulgent food, it just doesn't make you feel well. How do we kind of marry those two things?"
All of Deux's delicious products are made with simple, high-quality ingredients (and that includes essential vitamins and minerals). They're vegan and gluten-free, too. While Deux's cookie dough and Drip spreads aren't exactly a 1:1 replacement for daily dietary supplements, they are a nutritious treat. Thanks to the functional ingredients, these health-minded foods can help you eat more nutrients without sacrificing flavor - or fun.
"We’ve got a ton of new flavors of cookie dough. Our customers are obsessed with these flavor drops that we do," Ladha says. "We usually do them with a partner. [For example,] with Four Sigmatic we did our Space Brownie; we did a beauty cookie dough with Summer Fridays; and we have a couple of influencer collabs that are coming up."
What's next? Well, Ladha hopes more people start digging into Deux for breakfast.
"We’re actually almost repositioning the cookie dough a little bit, adding flavors that you might want for breakfast," she says. "We’ll get a ton of DMs in the morning, and we’ll see that people are making a breakfast cookie… Or, they’ll have a scoop of it before a workout, or they’ll have it as a snack in the afternoon. It’s not just limited to dessert."
Give this functional food brand a try for yourself at eatdeux.com - and make sure to follow Deux on Instagram @eatdeux so you don't miss the next drop.
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