On the WildFed tv present and podcast, host Daniel Vitalis harvests crops and animals, then works with cooks who flip the uncooked elements into scrumptious, sensible meals and drinks.
Vitalis grew to become a speaker and educator within the health-and-wellness house in 2007 and shortly teamed up with shut good friend and enterprise accomplice LeighLon Anderson—supervisor of the web site, advertising and marketing, promoting and back-end techniques—to launch Surthrival, a boutique complement firm, in 2008. Fifteen years later, they’re nonetheless launching modern merchandise to a devoted buyer base.
“We began Surthrival to assist our clients with probably the most distinctive, modern, and highly effective dietary supplements potential,” he says. “We’re identified for a grade of merchandise which are above the standard high quality of run-of-the-mill dietary supplements.”
Boasting bespoke gadgets like premium Colostrum, Elk Antler Velvet, Pine Pollen, and Chaga extracts in its product line, Surthrival received an Expo East 2023 NEXTY Award for Greatest New Planet-Ahead Product for its Black Walnut Protein Powder, which comes from nuts foraged by People younger and outdated, from all walks of life, throughout a number of states. We spoke with Vitalis to study extra about this distinctive product and why including wild meals to your weight loss program is sweet for each your physique and the setting.
Black walnut fruit with hulled black walnuts. Credit score: Canva
How did you get into main a “wild” way of life?
Daniel Vitalis: Wholesome way of life design has been a ardour of mine since I used to be a youngster. My childhood house was an unbalanced and unhealthy place, and I needed to study at an early age find out how to care for myself. Studying about wholesome consuming was a giant a part of that, and I rapidly developed a ardour for meals. Specifically, I got interested within the way of life of hunter-gatherers and was very taken by the concept of untamed meals. All of the meals we discover in our trendy market have a wild origin and it is my ardour to search out out what that origin is.
DV: On WildFed, we hunt and collect wild meals, then work with cooks to make unimaginable meals to share with the individuals who had been a part of the episode. Via my work within the wild meals house, I linked with Hammons Black Walnuts in Missouri and was blown away by their story. Our partnership on this venture was a pure match for each of our groups.
Daniel Vitalis, founding father of Surthrival, additionally hosts the WildFed TV present and podcast.
What makes black walnut protein totally different than other forms of plant-based protein?
DV: From a purely dietary perspective, wild black walnuts have a better protein content material than different industrial tree nut crops, and so our completed protein powder has—at 17 grams of protein per serving—extra protein than different plant-based protein powders.
That’s unimaginable sufficient, however the sourcing of this protein powder is the place it really shines. Slightly than the agricultural sourcing of different plant-based proteins, utilizing crops that originated in different elements of the world and that rely closely on fertilizers, irrigation, and different industrial inputs, black walnuts come from wild, native, North American bushes. Black walnuts had been rising wild right here in North America earlier than Europeans—or any people—arrived right here. Buying Black Walnut Protein Powder is a vote to maintain native wild bushes on the panorama, and extra of our wildlife’s habitat intact!
How do you accumulate and course of the walnuts?
DV: Each autumn our accomplice, Hammons Black Walnuts, places out greater than 200 “hulling stations” in 13 Midwestern states. These are locations the place black walnut foragers—simply common of us who’ve entry to black walnut bushes—can convey of their harvest. The nuts are put via an industrial “huller” that removes the outer husk, exposing the nut’s shell. Foragers are paid a per-pound fee on these completed nuts.
The nuts are then shelled at Hammons’ Stockton, Missouri, facility. The shells are used for industrial purposes like steel sprucing—they’ve been used to shine the Statue of Liberty—and the nut meats are bought as meals. A portion of these nutmeats go on to develop into our Black Walnut Protein Powder.
How do you handle the meals security facet, since you’re employed with many foragers who’re dealing with a wild product?
DV: Black walnuts are protected by a particularly powerful shell lined by a thick, fibrous outer husk. This retains the nut’s exterior free from contamination. It’s also possible to think about the tree’s roots, trunk, and branches performing like an enormous filter, sustaining the purity of the nuts themselves, that are its fruits. Being a wild crop, they’re by no means uncovered to pesticides, herbicides, or fertilizers. All of our completed merchandise are rigorously examined for contaminants, in order that’s our remaining and most vital security verify.
DV: CO2 extraction is a a lot cleaner and lower-temperature extraction course of than these sometimes utilized in protein manufacturing. For that reason, it’s the popular methodology within the medical hashish trade. CO2 fuel is throughout us, at about 0.5% of our ambiance. If compressed it turns into a liquid, which can be utilized to extract the fat-soluble portion of our black walnuts, very like alcohol is used to make a tincture.
As soon as the extraction is full, the stress is eliminated and the CO2 returns to its gaseous state, evaporating off and leaving zero residue behind. This course of removes the oil from the black walnut, forsaking the protein fraction that turns into our Black Walnut Protein Powder.
What did it imply to win the NEXTY Award for Greatest New Planet-Ahead Product?
DV: I knew from the second I attempted the primary batch of this product that we had one thing actually particular, however getting the NEXTY Award was affirmation that the trade may see it too. A product like this, based mostly on a local, wild tree that preserves habitat, wants no agricultural inputs, irrigation or farmland use—and that makes use of a volunteer-based foraging workforce—represents the implementation of our social and ecological tasks. It’s time for extra merchandise like this one within the market. I hope it evokes different firms to convey equally sourced merchandise to market.
What else would you want readers to find out about this product or the corporate?
DV: Surthrival is a small, impartial, mission-driven firm, that for 15 years has been direct to our customers. Black Walnut Protein Powder represents our first time bringing a product to a a lot wider viewers. We really respect the unimaginable reception we’ve obtained and thank all our clients for his or her assist and encouragement!
Any parting ideas?
DV: Black Walnut Protein Powder brings a strong wild meals into your weight loss program, and that’s necessary. However nothing can change a private relationship with the pure world. So, I encourage you to get outdoors. Fashionable persons are dropping their connection to nature, and meals is the proper approach to domesticate a reference to the pure world.