At Power Kitchen we class ourselves as a fast food restaurant. Our motto is Good Food Fast, and that’s exactly what we deliver: quality assured, fresh, whole food served in minutes.
Inevitably, a minority of people will compare us to standard fast food restaurants, with a particular focus on price. We know that we price our foods extremely fairly considering the high quality of the produce we use. You can get a sweet potato wrap with fillet steak for just £3.95. You can get a mini box filled with roast and steamed veggies, rices, a selection of toppings, salad, pickles, seeds, and homemade sauce for just £4.95. Your preschoolers always eat free with us, and your big kids eat free in the school hols.
‘But if I go to McDonalds, I can get a burger for a few pounds…’ ‘It’s only a couple of quid for a butty from Subway….’
This opinion is understandable, and we firmly believe that as a consumer it’s your personal right to judge the price of your food against the cost to your health.
In this article we will explore why we use the high-quality foods we use, and why we will NEVER compromise your health by using any cheaper alternatives, so that you might make an informed decision about whether paying the extra pence or pounds for your meal is worth it.
We use:
Red Tractor. We use meat which is quality-assured to ensure that rearing conditions are good, animals are pasture fed and supplemented only with good-quality feed in winter months, farmers use antibiotics and synthetic hormones responsibly only when necessary. This translates to ‘clean’ meat without the health detriments of cheap factory farmed meats.
Fresh produce. We buy in fresh fruit, vegetables and potatoes every single day. Again, we use quality assured produce to ensure that pesticide use is within responsible and safe levels.
Oils and fats. We use only olive, coconut, and cold-pressed oils, and pasture-fed British and Irish butters, to ensure that our customers receive the benefits of these ‘good’ fats are not subjected to the carcinogenic pro-inflammatory effects of trans-fats (hydrogenated vegetable oils).
Organic and specialist. We choose our sundries and condiments carefully. We keep preservatives to an absolute minimum, and use fermented ingredients (such as Tempeh and pickles) over processed, and choose organic wherever possible. We use Himalayan pink salt rather than cheap table salt for its purity and its superior micronutrient profile. We use herbs and spices renowned for their anti-inflammatory properties.
Sweetening. We use honey, maple syrup, organic coconut sugar, muscavado, and blackstrap molasses, to sweeten our recipes. Occasionally, we use stevia, xylitol and sucralose where zero or low carbs are called for.
The food industry’s biggest lie is that ‘there are no bad foods.’ There absolutely ARE bad foods, and while the detriment to your health will be much slighter if you consume these foods in moderation than catastrophic effects you can expect if you consume them all the time, they are nevertheless bad foods. For this reason we will never compromise your health by using:
Trans fats. Hydrogenated vegetable oils are massively pro inflammatory and proven to significantly increase the risk of cholesterol and heart disease.
Refined sugars: fructose syrup, glucose syrup, granulated sugar, and more. Heavily processed sugar is pro inflammatory and overconsumption shows clear links to heart disease, liver disease, poor gut health, metabolic syndrome and depression/anxiety. We steer clear of processed, refined sugars in all of our recipes and ingredients.
Wheat and gluten. Modern mass produced flours and grains are a far cry from their ancient alternatives, and both wheat and gluten are proven to be damaging to the gut, not just for coeliacs and those with IBD symptoms, but for everyone. We are a wheat and gluten free restaurant and will NEVER compromise this fact despite the higher cost of nut and rice flours, and the alternative grains we use such as quinoa.
We love our customers, and for the most part we feel that our customers truly appreciate the fact that we don’t ever compromise on quality. You can trust that we will never masquerade as ‘healthy’ by using cheap, poor-quality ingredients, and that we will never use ingredients which have been irrefutably proven to be a detriment to your health. If a slightly higher price for your fast food is worth the cost of maintaining good health, there will always be a place for you at the Power Kitchen.
Stella Blackledge, Dip BNC RegNutr