Become a nouri detective.

LYFE Kitchen is the new fresh food fast dining restaurant chain started by former McDonald’s executives. LYFE stands for love your food everyday. The LYFE team sure does marketing well.

Walk into the restaurant and they have done everything to make you feel like you are safely in the “healthy eating” zone. Three different menus based on your profile:

  • Vegan & Vegetarian: Plant Powered
  • Eat Everything: It’s All Good
  • Gluten Free: Good For Me

Each menu item lists calories and sodium content.

I realized that something was wrong when the Vegan Farmer’s Market salad contained 463 mg of sodium. And you ask what are the contents of this salad that make it so salty?—arugula, frisse, blackberries, picked onions, spiced pecans and balsamic vinaigrette. I asked this very same question upon ordering it. I was told by the pleasant order taker that she didn’t know, but it was probably in the vinaigrette. I responded with… “but it’s a balsamic vinaigrette which usually means just balsamic vinegar and olive oil, no other additives.” Her response was, “would you like it on the side?” As suspicious as I already was, I decided to try it and asked for it on the side.

The salad arrived with the balsamic vinaigrette on the side. The blackberries had some coating on it that I couldn’t decipher, and the spiced pecans were more like powdered sugar pecans. I put three drops of the vinaigrette on the salad. And when I say drops, I mean three little trepidatious drops. I was really scared. It was like eating salt water! It was totally inedible. They must have dumped a half cup of table salt into the dressing for it to be that salty.

My friend ordered the Vegan Kale Caesar which had 250 mg of sodium and the Orange-Ginger Mint Chia drink which had 28 mg of sodium. She said the salad was like a “salt lick” and inedible. She was also disappointed over the Orange-Ginger Mint Chia drink, which was supposed to be unsweetened and was clearly sweetened beyond the “fresh squeezed orange juice”.

After two bites, we both pushed our plates aside and asked the manager for a refund. The manager tried to get us to order something else, but we refused. She was gracious enough to process the refund without a fuss.

If you are someone who is used to eating fast food or processed food the sodium levels might seem normal (although definitely not healthy). It appears that the former McDonald’s team is practicing the same fat, salt, sugar strategy that has been so successful in the fast food and processed food industry, but now trading on “healthy whole foods” to hook people.

While I commend LYFE for trying to change the standard American diet at scale, and having an impact on shifting food production in the US, what may have started out as nouri, is no longer nouri. Organic, non-GMO, unprocessed whole foods will lose their nouriness if cooked at high heat and/or laced with hidden fats, salts, and sugars. Nouri is organic, non-GMO, unprocessed whole food that improves cellular function, promotes energy, and reduces the risk of illness and disease. LYFE does not claim to source organic ingredients, but does attempt to source local ingredients (whatever that means).

One book I highly recommend if you are going to become a nouri detective is Salt, Sugar, Fat by Michael Moss. Moss does a masterful job of explaining how over 100,000 food scientists are focused on engineering fat, salt and sugar in foods so that people will eat more food then their bodies were ever designed to process.

Don’t fall for the marketing; become a nouri detective!