Choosing the healthier slice of life
Fresh batter, fresh start
Cheesecakes. A dessert that one might eat with neither care nor thought. A dessert that tastes so palatable, one can’t help but go for seconds. A dessert however, that Andrea’s mother refuses to take more than one or two bites of in fear that it would trigger her heart disease.
“The day my mom came back from the hospital was the day I started to want to take my power back on my health,” said Andrea Lee, 32, the founder of The Clean Addicts.
Source: The Clean Addicts
The Clean Addicts was first launched as an online bakery on Instagram in 2017. The bakery aims to provide healthier alternatives for sugary cakes and treats for health conscious individuals. A few of these delicacies include Vegan Cocoa Wholefoods Fudge Cake, Vegan Double Chocolate Mochi Cake and Vegan Double Matcha Flourless Vegan Fudge Cake which is diabetic friendly.
“After seeing my mom so frail she couldn’t even lift a plastic bag of groceries, that's when I thought it’s pretty serious,” Andrea said with a forlorn look in recollection of the memory. Shortly after, her mother got diagnosed with heart disease which served as a wake up call for Andrea.
Source: The Clean Addicts
Andrea then decided to take matters into her own hands. “When my mom got diagnosed we had a hard time finding healthy cakes and pastries in the market,” Andrea said, “so I decided to make my own versions.”
“I started out with my own fudge cake,” said The Clean Addict founder, “Fudge cakes outside are pretty high in calories and saturated fats because the fudge is usually made with butter so I tried a healthier take on it by incorporating beans, oats and sunflower seeds blended into flour.”
Not exactly a piece of cake…
The first bump in the road Andrea faced was her customers’ expectations about healthy bakes. “Initially, when I first started the business, I got all kinds of comments like ‘This is not even a cake, I can’t take it.’ and it was very discouraging,” Andrea said with her lips pulled into a thin line. “But I do have to accept that not everyone can appreciate whole foods if you are not even into this healthy eating kind of scene or stage of life.” She added that when vegans try her food, they are very stunned by the taste because it tastes different from what they expect.
Source: The Clean Addicts
“People expect clean eating or healthy foods to taste the same as the regular dish like croissants and those kinds of french pastries which require a lot of butter,” Andrea explained. For those who don't bake it is hard to understand how much butter goes into the pastries and the eggs that give that structure. Hence, it is tough to get the same structure and “that mouth feel of butteriness” as Andrea described, even with vegan alternatives and whole foods.
“However, I try to serve slightly more acceptable pastries like the mochi muffins,” Andrea shared. “That is more acceptable for those who don't eat healthy and that gives customers more confidence in trying my other products.”
The second bump in the road was in the innovation of her recipes. “Process wise it is actually not easy. I have tried around a hundred recipes, only a handful are probably going to work or even taste good,” Andrea said. She added that a lot of effort goes into Research and Development (RND) due to the limited whole food ingredients in the market which causes many to be discouraged from whole food baking.
The cherry on top
Despite the numerous challenges, Andrea was determined to see it through with her bakery business.
Currently, The Clean Addicts has their own physical bakery in Kovan with several renowned clients such as Meta, P&G and Temasek Holdings.
“I think we have helped people like me who love desserts, many customers, mainly women, who love their treats and just want to find comfort in desserts on a bad day,” Andrea said with a toothy grin.
Source: The Clean Addicts
“During Covid, a lot of people want to eat a lot of cakes because they're high in sugar and fat is inflammatory. But our cakes are made with beans so it's a great healthier alternative than what they offer in the market.”
On the side, Andrea also hosts mindset coaching workshops for those with disordered eating patterns. “I know it's difficult to ask for that help so I hope to offer this service to anyone who needs help in nourishing their bodies and reminding them to eat.”
“You can prevent heart disease and chronic disease like diabetes and all that through your lifestyle so why don’t we start? Instead of getting the disease and learning your lesson, it’s too late by then and we regret the things we have done.”
