EP7: Making Healthy Eating Simple with Zach Sattler from Clean Eatz

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Welcome to Healthy Knox, connecting Knoxville to better health. This is the show where we cut through the noise and get real about what it takes to live a healthier life right here in East Tennessee. Your hosts are two doctors who aren't just talking about health. They're living it and delivering it to this community every single day. Dr. Cherise and Dr. Trent from Corrective Chiropractic, let's get into it. All right, welcome back Knoxville, where health isn't a trend, it's a lifestyle. I'm your host, Dr. Trent Hippard, corrective chiropractor and wellness and prevention practitioner. Today's episode is with Zach Sattler. He's the sales and marketing director for Clean Eatz. Welcome aboard. Thank you for having me. Appreciate it. So Zach, tell us a little bit about Clean Eatz in two minutes that most people probably don't know or maybe have a misconception about Clean Eatz. Yeah. So Clean Eatz, we are a local family-owned franchise. We have five locations in our group three here in the Greater Knoxville area, Chattanooga, and then Asheville, North Carolina. And I think the biggest misconception is that we are just chicken and rice or broccoli and rice and chicken type of place. We have, every week we have options of over 120 meals to choose from. So we tailor to everybody. If you have dietary restrictions, allergens, we got you covered Now tell the listeners a little bit too about you're not only just... I don't wanna give away the farm here, but yes, you guys are a restaurant at most, I think, all locations, where you can stop in, grab a bite to eat. But also tell 'em the listeners about, I think it's your meal planning and prep and stuff that you guys have. Yeah, absolutely. So we do three things. As you mentioned, we have the cafes. So you just come in, quick and easy lunch option. Perfect for business professionals during the week, moms and dads on the weekend, weeknights. We also offer the Grab And Gos, which are in our stores. Those are fresh-made meals in our commercial kitchen in the back that are flash frozen. We have over 75 options in there every day, a la carte style. Just pick out what you like. All of them have the macros on 'em, different price points, different options, low carb, high carb, high protein, you name it. Then lastly, the meal plan. So the meal plan is a weekly menu. We do it, now we are doing it 52 weeks a year. So every single week we come out with a menu that has seven options of meals add-ons, like desserts, peanut butter and jelly, high protein snacks. We're always changing it, add new salads during the summer. We got pizzas on there. So you have a full menu to choose from weekly with a fresh set of options every single week, and the best part about that is there's zero subscriptions. So you're not locked into anything. It's come and go as you please. Pricing is based on a tier system, so the more you buy, the cheaper they get. Okay. And then as the name implies, Clean Eats, expand upon that and the ingredients and the things yous guys do for each of these meals that you guys make. Yeah, that is probably the number one question I get asked at all the events I do locally. "What does Clean Eats mean?" So our philosophy is serving food in its most whole natural state without add- So we don't add any extra oils. We don't add any extra butters and stuff like that. Not that there's wrong with butter. I'm a huge fan of it personally. But we just kinda keep things natural and use herb- natural herbs to flavor our food. And then we are huge on balance and port- and portion size. So all of our meals come with a mac- macro ingredients as far as, hey, four ounces of protein in this, four ounces of carbs. So balancing a meal proportionately is a huge philosophy of ours. So that's when it kinda Clean Eats says serving things in its whole, most whole natural state and then balancing the meal correctly. Now, in the last, we'll say, like three to five years, what have you seen? 'Cause you've been with the company for about that timeframe. What have you seen the trends with nutrition and- What are some of the biggest and hottest things right now, and how are you guys catering to that? Yeah. Yeah, that's a great question. I would say it's... I've been in the fitness industry as a whole for about 12 to 13 years, and the years I've been with Clean Eats on the food side of things, it's definitely, in this industry and in this world of fitness, there's always fads. There's trends that come and go. So the one thing I think that's stayed consistent is this low carb. Now that's been around for a very long time, I'd say since we started really, but the new thing's kinda like the carnivore. We have a lot of that's come into play. But right now which we're actually working on building a program around specifically, is the peptide trend. So the peptides are becoming a huge thing in our world, in our culture. So we're trying to figure out... And we just launched a brand-new product bundle called the GLP1 Pack. So it's designed specifically for people that are on GLP-1s currently, and kinda fits their nutritional def- deficiencies that they're having within. So all those meals are high protein, low carb meals. You can order them through the package on the website five meals a week. So that is something that's been extremely well received in the first, I think, two months since we rolled that out. But I'm currently building out a program specifically for anybody that's on a peptide, and we're looking to partner with local places in the community to ri- bridge that gap between awareness of just 'cause you're taking a peptide doesn't mean that everything else goes by the wayside. Where is the deficiencies? And one of the biggest things that we're seeing is the nutrition aspect, how important it is to compare those two things together. So that's something we have coming out soon. Awesome. What's a big misconception with people in general about diet? I think it's the extremes. It's people that just from It's c- it's a lot of cultural narratives that have been put out there, but that you have to go to some extreme, that you have to eat chicken, rice, and broccoli every single day to lose weight. We know in this industry it's a numbers game. Calories in versus calories out. Now, there's nuance to that, of course. You don't wanna be eating Pop-Tarts as your diet and be like I'm under my calorie goal." So it's, one, it's more than just a weight on a scale. We focus on how you're feeling. How are you performing in everyday life? How active can you be with your kids, how much energy are you sustaining till 7:00, 8:00 PM at night? So as a whole, I think it's just this misconception it has to be life-consuming, when what we do is try to make it very livable. How, how can we make it... It's literally our slogan, it's a lifestyle. So how can we fit somebody where they are in their life without disrupting their life patterns, their schedule, and their commitments they have, and how can we provide value to them where, exactly where they are? Yeah. I love... i've been a fan of you guys' ever since we moved here five, six years ago, and what I love is that you make things that can be complex to the novice person getting into just wanting to eat better, get back on, maybe wanting to lose weight, whatever the case may be. But you guys make it simple for them to get that going. And two, you make really great flavorful options for the take-homes, and then your in-person restaurant or takeout is great as well. So would you say how popular is your wrap and goes? First off, thank you. I appreciate that. We are definitely our biggest critics ourselves, is we are... You're very critical of not wanting to put out un-flavorful, boring food, because we've all just been there with those diets, and you're just two or three weeks, a month in, you get burnt out, and you're more likely to go back to those trends. So that is definitely something that we take to heart. What was the question again? Grab and goes? My question was is your, Yeah grab and goes, are they pretty popular? Yeah. So grab and goes, they're one of those things actually we're tackling right now of just doing a revamp of it's hard when you have that many options. Sometimes we have decision fatigues that we feel like sets in with, so how do we communicate people exactly what is their interest? Right now we're seeing a lot of the low carb. It's probably a seasonal thing we're seeing as well, but high protein. I think there's such a cultural push right now with protein as a whole. There's a huge massive kind of deficiency in powder proteins right now that we're seeing in the marketplace. So you're seeing prices of powders go through the roof. So protein as a whole is we're definitely seeing more high protein meals requested. So we're always just... Honestly, we always are trying to get feedback and meet people where they're at. What is their interest? What is the kind of cultural trend of where people are trying to eat and how can we build meals that taste amazing and meet people with what they want, and not just what we wanna push out there. Note on where do you... Do you guys do your sourcing of your vegetables, your fruits, and all those things? Talk a little bit about that. Yeah, so everything we do is through US Foods. We have our own private, like I call it private kitchen inside US Foods. So we get s- very selective. Our, actually our owner Yvonne Viradi, she's still hands-on involved with selecting what foods come into our cafes, working with US Foods and distributors to bring in selective things that kind of meet our criteria. So the fact that we still have, I think we just broke 120 franchises in our company, and the owners are still day-to-day hands-on. Don, Yvonne, they just live the brand, and they're driving it from the front. So w- the amount of calls and hours and conversation that goes into what we're serving, what food it is, where we're sourcing it from, and what we can provide and how can we get better is way more than I think people understand. That was, it's a b- like it's a full-time thing for our ops director. Clint is constantly looking at how can we innovate, how can we evolve, how can we better serve, new fresh options. So that's something that we put an immense amount of time into. Okay. And that's, and it's a lot of those things as a business owner, the consumer doesn't see those things behind doors, so I appreciate you- Yeah expanding on that. Do you guys have or played with the idea, I'm sure you have, with like organic options? Is that something that you've tried or it doesn't make sense? Talk a little bit about that. Yeah, we have done them. The biggest kind of sticking point that we have with them as a company I'd say is what does that mean? So the organic label as a whole kind of got to a point where it's just being sold, and the regulation on the back end of what that entirely meant, it was very loosely defined. So companies were paying this exuberant fee to have an organic label slapped on their food, but it really wasn't meeting any quote unquote "organic standards." So unfortunately, because we're a franchise, we can't source from like local farms, which would be amazing. But if there's some sort of like outbreak, we can literally track exactly to where that product came from out of the ground, what seed, what plant, and everything. So we know exactly how to tr- so health and safety of food is obviously our number one most important thing for us, so- But going back to organic, it's just how much... Are we paying a premium for a label or are we paying a premium for a product? So those are the questions we ask all the time and do deep dives on, is like we have no problem paying a premium for a product that is incredible, and meets our standards. But if we're just paying more because it says organic, but it's the same thing as a product that, is new and upcoming that some other small farm has got into mass production, then we would, go that route. Just... 'Cause our biggest... We always wanna provide a reasonable price point, too. With the meal plan world, it can get out of hand very quick where you're charging 14 to $18 per meal, and you're eliminating a whole demo of people that want to live healthier, want... So you have to make it cost-effective. You can't do those eliminator factors where you have just extremely high-end cost meals. So it's a tough balance for sure, but we just do the best we can with seeing what options are available and what fits our brand the most. And you probably know this just like anybody else in this field, but organic is really just a less exposure to pesticides and whatnot, but the micronutrient level is about similar- Yeah whether it's organic or conventional. So that segme- that segues me into my next question, which is you guys do a lot of meals that are, like, focused on macros, and that may be a new term for a listener that's listening to this for the first time and don't know anything about that. So define what macros are simply, and then highlight micronutrients and how that applies into your guys' meals and decisions. Yeah. When we say the word macro or macronutrients it's referencing protein, carbs, and fats. So those are what make up calories. You have other things in there, but not to get too nuanced. We'll just keep it the basics. So the protein, carbs, and fats, we're looking for... When I say low carb, obviously that is rem- in that macro. People want... Normally it means under 50 grams of carbs, sometimes 25. So what we're ref- are like overall is we wanna be around under 500 calories is our threshold for the average meal if you're eliminating the high-protein ones. Or we have these athlete meals that are made for people that are of high out- calorie output. But generally speaking, we want to be around that 25 to 35 grams of protein per meal somewhere around, I'd say 30 to 50 carbs and then fat, you... We generally try to keep that below 20. Fat can, be a really useful tool. If you wanna lower the, pull the lever down on carbs, you can increase fat. Fat's an incredible energy source. We're always trying to find that balance of... And then the variety. Not every meal is gonna be exactly what somebody needs, but we'll find something for you based on what your needs are. So that's kinda what we're referencing when we say the terminology of macros. And then comment on micronutrients and how that plays into your guys' preps. Yes. It's a, it's... As far as portion control, it's everything, right? Because we're scaling everything out to exactly one cup. So those micronutrients is deep br- it's... Our staff leave with a degree, a master's degree in nutrients by the time, before they come in. People come in... Even our owner Neil, was like, came from Carrabba's. For 15 years he ran that, and he had no idea what the terminology macronutrients was. Like, their m- the marsala was just butter. So it's all these things of just new world. So when we source a meal and we're building a meal, that is our foundation, is what is the macros to this? How many proteins and fats are in the chicken? How many in this, say, potato blend, what is the carb source? So those macronutrients and making sure that we're providing a balanced, healthy meal is literally how we start kind of building meals from the get, ground up. Yeah. And I think it's worth noting here that when we eat more nutrient-dense whole foods, it pushes out a lot of the other stuff and junk that people would want, because your body's actually getting these micronutrients, so it doesn't feel hungry as often because it's getting nourished. Yeah. Otherwise, when you eat ultra-processed foods and junk food, as your body gets hungry a lot faster because it's seeking out nutrients. That's basically why you get hungry, 'cause it's not getting it to sustain- Yeah your body. What's one thing about Clean Eatz that you love working with them for the past five years? What do you love? Hands down, it's community. It's, we're a business that is literally driven by community. And we're not originally from Knoxville. We opened these stores and moved here in 2017. And we've been super, super blessed to be embraced by the community. But my job specifically is literally to connect with community. As the marketing and sales guy, it's to get out, to talk about the brand, to meet new people, introduce us. But so it's everybody's, our favorite part is our customer base and just the friendly faces and the consistency that we see and the conversations and relationships we're able to develop. As a whole, it's just being out and we're a w- kind of a one of one. We're a unicorn. There's nobody like us. So that educational com- component of explaining our brand and meeting people, and they get super excited about it. So it's hands down just the amazing community of Knoxville and how blessed they, we have been for the way they've accepted us, and how we try to give back and provide value to them in return, for sure. I love that. And you guys are great, and you guys are a unicorn. You are one of one, for sure. There's nob- nothing else like you guys out there. I love that about you guys. If somebody's interested in trying you guys or finding you guys how can they find you guys, and how can they try anything that you got for a grab and go or set up something online? I think you have a availability to do that. Yeah. Honestly, as crazy as it sounds, I tell people not to try the meal plan till you come into the store. We prioritize customer service above everything else. And aside from health and safety of food, that is number one thing for us is. So I would recommend just come into the store, cafe, stop by whatever one's most convenient, Maryville, Farragut, or Bearden, and just tell them it's your first time in. And I can guarantee you that they're gonna take care of you, walk you through step-by-step, explain what is what find exactly what you're looking for that best fits you. So that overwhelming aspect of because we are a unicorn, it's a different flow and concept when you walk in. So just recommend walk in, be like, "Hey, I heard about us from Dr. Hippard's podcast, and we wanna check you out." And they'll give you a full rundown of what we do. Awesome. And if you guys stop by the Farragut location, we do have a QR code at checkout that you can get a free lunch on us. So we'll cater from Clean Eatz to whatever business you guys have and do a little bit of a lunch and learn for you guys. So Zach, I appreciate your time today, and it's been a pleasure talking about everything Clean Eatz. And I'd probably like to have you back maybe again some other episode and talk about some other specifics or anything new that's happening with you guys. But just remember in Knoxville when it comes to your health, you're worth it. We'll talk to you next time. That's a wrap on Healthy Knox. Thanks for spending some time with us today. If something we said stuck with you, share it with someone in your life who needs to hear it. And if you're ready to take the next step toward feeling better right here in Knoxville, come see us at Corrective Chiropractic. We're not just your doctors, we're your neighbors. We'll see you next time.