Arash, 32, hometown — Tehran, founder of natural ice cream Eco Schmecko
Darya Hubert, 30, hometown — Rudny, founder of natural ice cream Eco Schmecko
How it all started
Darya. Our way of life moved us towards creating a natural ice cream. For ten years I’ve been living in non-violent relations with this world: I am a vegetarian, I do not wear leather and fur. My husband is also a vegetarian, and last year we both became vegan, that is, we completely gave up milk.
For the creation of eco ice cream we were motivated by the desire to share a healthy and tasty food with our friends. We have a lot of friends, and everything we cook at home we share with them. They say: “Dasha, you cook so well, you need to feed more people. If only there would be such a place in the city. We would come there.” It inspired me, and we decided to start with a simple thing — an ice cream.
There was another eco fair we participated in and served ice cream. We did it a couple of times, and then we were invited to the ice cream festival that was held in Gorky Park. Our ice cream became a feature of the event because I do not regard anything else that was sold there as what can be eaten. White sugar or dairy products — is something you should not eat. It turned out that our product was the most healthy at that festival, since it does not contain any milk, sugar or animal fats.
So far, our product can be tried at eco festivals and fairs, which we are involved in. Our project is in the process of creation, we are equipping the premises and doing repairs.
About ice cream
We make two types of ice cream at the events: banana-strawberry and banana-raspberry. So, our ice cream includes berries, fruits and nothing else. The waffle cone is also harmless. For its preparation we use whole-grain flour, cane sugar, homemade soy milk, safflower oil, a little flax flour and cardamom for taste. We order waffle cones separately. There is a woman whom we bring the best quality products to, and she makes them. The space that we are preparing will include a production room where we will produce waffle cones ourselves.
Prior to each event, my husband goes to the market and buys ripe bananas and fresh berries in boxes. Then we process everything, cut and pack them into containers and freeze them by portion in the freezer. There are two ways to get juice: through a centrifugal and masticating juicer. The first one quickly cuts, presses, but heats the juice, thereby disrupting the structure of the product. The masticating juicer retains the benefits of juice, does not heat it, gives the product a different quality, so we purchased it. In this juicer, we have a nozzle for ice cream, which immediately allows you to spread out the ice cream in a waffle cone in the form of a ribbon.
Our ice cream costs 500 tenge but it’s enough to feel full for half a day. Those who understand ice cream say that selling such a weight for 500 tenge is super generous. That is, usually ice cream ball weighing 40 grams is sold for such price, while one serving of our ice cream is 130-140 grams.
About the benefits of natural ice cream
Usual ice cream, which is sold in stores, contains a large amount of milk, sugar and animal fat of doubtful origin. Why does your throat often hurt after you eat such ice cream? Because it contains fat, which remains on the walls of the throat and freezes this space.
Speaking of sugar, it worsens health, quality of life and causes addiction worse than cocaine.
Our ice cream is made exclusively of natural ingredients. It does not contain cow milk, sugar and fats, it quickly passes and warms, so that the throat does not hurt.
It is important to note that when a person stops exhausting his organism in this way and turns to healthy and specific diet, he can live until 100 years leading active and normal life.
About future plans
We are in the process of creating a space with a small hall — something like a small restaurant of home-made vegan cuisine, a store where you can take the products with you. Also, there will be a space for getting an informative base, feeding and yoga.
We want to organize eco-festivals, trainings, meetings with eco-bloggers who are authoritative in this field. For example, there is a guy, Roman Milovanov, who has a YouTube channel where he inspires people to be conscious of their food and health. We would like to create all conditions for him in order to invite him to Almaty.
We are planning to work out a menu for the lovers of delicious food, for those who want to switch to a healthy diet without changing the quality of their habits. That is, we want to start making alternatives to the “narcotic” food that contains sugar or milk — in general, everything that causes addiction. For example, many people are addicted to cheese, they say: “Without cheese, I would become vegan but I love cheese.” In the space, we are currently preparing, we are going to sell vegan cheese of our own production.
We also make a natural chocolate. In the near future it will be available for sale as well.
