Nutritionals

Alright everybody, it’s working. We’ve launched an entirely new approach to ice coffee. Expect to wait 60-90 seconds. Expect a better cup. That’s right. We think this is tasting straight-up better than the cold brew method. And we’re very happy to announce that caffeine levels are closer to where they should be.

I did some quick estimates and I think I was right about the cold-brew method being over caffeinated. Health associations give guidelines of 200-400 mg caffeine/ day max dose. My estimates (rough):

Assume:

- 2% by weight
- Cold brew takes 100% of caffeine from coffee beans (I still think this is likely close to the fact, but don’t really have any proof)
- I did my math right : )

2 oz espresso: 100 mg caffeine (50 mg/ oz)
10 oz hot coffee: 100 mg caffeine (10 mg/ oz)
10 oz cold brew (OLD Clover method): 283 mg caffeine (28 mg/ oz)
10 oz single cup iced (NEW Clover method): 100 mg caffeine (10 mg/ oz)

I’m a pain when I go into food shops these days. I’m afraid I’m driving the staff crazy, and I know I’m driving my friends crazy. I’m always in research mode. 100% of the time.

Right now I have muffins on my mind. I suspect we can improve ours. But it’s going to take some serious development work. To start with we’re doing what we always do, talking to you all and asking what you think. What do you like about our muffins? What’s letting you down?

So that muffin there, it’s from Peet’s. And the poor guy behind the counter had to dig out the nutrition book from who knows where and look it up for me. Try asking for nutritionals at your favorite fast food shop. You’ll quickly start feeling like you’re not suppose to be asking those questions.

This bad boy: 580 calories, 30 grams of fat. That’s right: 580 calories! You may not know what that means, but I’ve been looking at this stuff a lot. That’s just crazy. That’s more calories and more fat than a Big Mac. No seriously, it is. Look it up. Or one and a half servings of our french fries!! That’s right. Eating that muffin is like ordering our fries, eating them all by yourself, then stealing your friends and eating half of his.

Our banana muffins have around 216 calories, 8 g fat, and 6 g protein. Sorry, haven’t gotten around to putting that up yet. Best of all, they’re 100% whole grains (whole wheat flour, oat bran, wheat germ). But do they taste good? If they don’t we need to change them, I don’t care how healthy they are for you…

At long last. I remembered to take a picture of one of you with the egg and eggplant sandwich. Now I can post the nutritionals. Sorry it took so long. Not as though we sell a couple hundred of these each day or anything…

The egg and eggplant is a middle eastern sandwich. As with most of our middle eastern inspired stuff I get confused when trying to research exactly where things are from/ when they originated. Maybe Iraqi Jews? It’s often called Sabich. You all know it as “Egg and Eggplant,” or for our regulars, “Egg and Egg.”

I first had this sandwich in NYC where a few of the hummus shops offer it in various forms. Rolando and I played with our own version trying different combinations before settling in on the current version. It does a good job of using some of the same great stuff that we prepare for the Chickpea Fritter, but giving it a different taste profile.

So what’s in it?

Pita, hummus (tahini, lemon juice, garlic, chickpeas, tiny bit of baking soda, salt), eggplant, cucumber tomato salad (cucumbers, tomatoes, salt, lemon juice, spices), hard boiled Chip In Farm egg, tahini (tahini, lemon juice, salt, water).

Calories 418 kcal

Carbohydrates 43 g

Fat 19 g

% calories from fat: 41%

Protein 17 g

Fiber 11 g

Cholesterol 212 mg

I still owe you all the nutritionals on the Egg and Eggplant and the soy BLT. I’ll get those up soon, but to tide you over, here are the french fries.

We sent out a couple samples of our fries, cut, soaked, drained, fried, salted just as we always do. Besides being cut on the truck, our fries have a few other unusual qualities. When Rolando and I got started trying to figure out how to make french fries we knew they weren’t going to be frozen. Most fries are called “Sysco fries” in the industry, Sysco is a large foodservice supplier.

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Time for the BBQ. This sandwich is a funny one. We didn’t bring it into the line-up out of the gate. It was the last of the regular sandwiches to hit the street. Rolando was pressing me, “what else, what other sandwiches?” Part of what has worked so well for the two of us is that I’m vegetarian, he’s not. We both love food. So I have a history of trying to make food I love to eat that doesn’t have any meat. Some of you have tried this. It takes some creativity and a spirit of adventure. Rolando has a meaty palette. He was able to taste stuff I gave him and say “yuck,” or “with some changes this might work.” Then of course he would work some of his magic, scale it up, and bingo.

One of the sandwiches I’ve always loved to make at home is a seitan sandwich. There is some store-bought seitan in a Teriyaki sauce that I’d throw into a pan, brown, then add caramelized onions and melt cheddar cheese. I’d add the best tomatoes I could find and it was a meal.

(keep reading for the rest of the story, and nutritionals)

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While we like to think that you all love every sandwich equally, it’s hard to deny that the Chickpea Fritter outsells its brothers. So we thought we’d start here on the detailed sandwich nutritionals.

First, the ingredients. You all know our whole wheat pita. We make our own hummus from dried organic chickpeas. For the sandwiches we make the hummus less thick than you’d want if you were eating it straight. And as you’ve all nodoubt noticed neither Rolando nor I have any particular ethnic credibility, certainly not middle eastern. So we don’t fake it. We’ve played around with these flavors to come up with something customers like. In this case it means less garlic and less Cumin in the hummus than some may consider “authentic.” We don’t use olive oil, and we’ve cut back on tahini, mostly because these two were adding little taste and a lot of fat to the sandwich.

We add an “israeli salad” on top of the hummus. That’s a tomato and cucumber salad that we make up each morning. Diced cucumbers, diced tomatoes, a variety of spices including Za’atar, and fresh squeezed lemon juice. We then add some thin sliced pickles. We get our pickles from a place in Worcester called Regal Crown. We think they’re the best around. And we buy them whole and slice them ourselves because pickles that have been sliced before pickling just don’t have that crunch. These aren’t fermented or anything, just a very simple vinegar-y dill pickle.

On top of that bed we put our “chickpea fritters,” straight out of the fryer. They’re one of the few complicated things we make. No baking soda. No gluten.

Then come the pickled vegetables: organic carrots, red cabbage, red onions all pickled in a brine made with organic white wine vinegar and kosher salt.

Lastly we top everything with tahini mixed with lemon juice, water, and salt to make the sauce that is confusingly called “tahini.” So what does it cost you?

Calories 455 kcal

Carbohydrates 73 g

Fat 12 g

% calories from fat: 24%

Protein 15 g

Fiber 14 g

Cholesterol 0 mg

As you all know our pita is very important to us. We use it for every single sandwich. If we couldn’t deliver this quality of pita we would be serving Clover sandwiches on bread or something else.

When we first got started I spent a lot of time and money trying to get a local baker to make the bread we wanted. I talked to bakers and ran large custom runs at some of the local bakeries (including Iggys, Near East). We just couldn’t achieve what we were looking for. We tried importing a bread from Montreal for a while that others raved about. It just wasn’t there. People told me that Rami’s in Brookline flys bread in from Israel. I’m not sure whether this is true, but it wasn’t something we’d ever do. We get our bread from Booklyn, and that’s far enough.

Nutritionally our bread is quite different from Pita you might find in a grocery store. For one it’s whole wheat. This helps make our sandwiches more filling, and it provides you with a bunch of micronutrients and good fiber. Because they are fresh and we don’t hold them at all our bread has no preservatives. It’s also low on fat since we don’t need to use fat to make it feel moist in a grocery store. And our bread is also relatively high in protein. It’s small, so our calorie count is on the low side. Here is the summary:

EDIT: Chris, one of our longtime employees and a nutritionist, says he thinks our Pita supplier is playing games with these numbers, as most companies do. Eager to make their nutritionals look “good” folks play with the serving size number. Chris thinks our pita are on average something more like 3.5 oz per pita (not the 2.5 oz per pita listed above). You know, candy bars that are only 200 calories, but contain 3 servings in the bar. We’ll reflect this going forward. Thanks Chris for keeping this process honest.

This picture marks the beginning of our journey to uncover Clover’s nutritionals. Yup, I’m wearing a T-shirt in the picture. For those of you who have been asking, and waiting, and asking, and patiently waiting, we’ve finally pulled this together.

As with everything at Clover these will evolve. Over the next few weeks we’ll be sharing basic nutritional data for our sandwiches, soups, fries, beverages. We’ll take our time and this will give us a chance to talk about choices we’ve made, ingredients, methods, etc. It’s going to be a fun ride.

Now, for a few words about our approach to this stuff. First, we know that a bunch of you could care less: stop reading now, we’ve already wasted your time. Others have been very curious. Exactly how should I think about that egg+egg in my hand? Is it a healthy choice? We’ve been hearing these questions and more.

Our first concern is always going to be that you can’t wait to eat that sandwich in your hand. If you don’t love the food you wont eat it and the nutritional content is meaningless.

Our second concern is related to the first, we’re committed to making sure your sandwich is made from the best tasting ingredients. We think local in season food tastes better. And we think whole foods are much more filling per calorie. This is why we use whole wheat bread, tons of fresh seasonal and local vegetables, whole chickpeas, etc. It’s also why we use our own hands to make pretty much everything we sell you (with the exception of the smokey tempeh strips, but that’s another post). We think better ingredients taste better.

Only after we are satisfied that the food tastes great, and we’re happy with the ingredients, only then do we start to worry ourselves with other issues: speed, cost, unique but familiar and accessible, local economies. Ok, and somewhere in that mix “health” pops up. And we’re always striving for transparency, so obviously we had to find a way to answer your questions.

Read on for more about Clover’s nutritionals (including some cool charts I spent too much time building)

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