Stephen de Vore

Pre-text from Ambronite

The following text is a direct copy+paste from our customer support, when Stephen de Vore contacted us in late 2016. He provided the amazing feedback below. The text is provided as is, we've simply added headline topics to structure the text and fixed some typos. 

This has been the most encouraging customer feedback we have received to date. We are extremely proud of it. It's flattering to see that some of our customers actually understand the hard work behind the R&D and science we've put to Ambronite.

Why I love Ambronite

I'm a middle aged guy, American, 290 lbs. In a year of eating Ambronite, I'll be at 170 lbs again, and healthy as it is possible to be. I've spent years (literally) poring through nutritional charts for various foods, including wild foods. And I have to say, I simply LOVE the ingredients list of Ambronite. The reason I love Ambronite is because it's got everything WITHOUT any supplementation — it's all natural, whole, (mostly) organic real food. A truly a COMPLETE meal replacement as far as every known necessary nutrient is concerned.

You've done your research with the ingredients

I loved the idea of your product, so I tried it. I didn't love the undertone of spirulina in Version 4, but the Version 5 mix has toned that down quite a bit - and probably a drop of honey (or maybe a shot of rum) will clear even that. I need your product. I've gotten fat, way too fat, and I'm going to use my research, which led me to your product, to get me "un-fat". I have about 110 pounds to lose. It will be slow, but with Ambronite I know I'm getting everything I need. I've researched your product: it is the best of the best - better than anything else out there - truly a tour de force. Also, being part Sami by origin myself, I rather like the idea of berries from Finland being in my food, here in faraway New York.  

As an example of the depth of your product:  from my own research I learned that two weeds: stinging nettle and wild marshmallow (nothing to do with the puffy sweets) have the most intense nutritional profile of all of the plants. So it made me smile when I saw that you put nettle in Ambronite. In my research, I also saw that the most nutritionally dense of the conventional grocery store foods is spinach. So I smiled once again to see that you put that in Ambronite. I sought out the highest vegetable source of Iodine. It's cranberries, grown in bogs near the sea (so, Massachusetts cranberries have lots of iodine, but Minnesota cranberries don't). And lo and behold, you have cranberries in your formula (where ELSE would get the iodine, other than perhaps the "mineral salts"?). The best fruit source of concentrated Vitamin C per calorie?  Black currants. You've got them in there. 

Challenge with protein source

Protein is hard. Sure, there's the easy solution of soy.  But putting aside the questions about anti-nutrients in unfermented soy, and putting aside the issue of phytoestrogens in soy, there's the simple problem for me that soy makes my throat scratchy, so I'm at least slightly allergic to it and won't eat it. If vegetarianism required eating soy, I would have to give up the dream of it: I'm not going to eat something that makes me miserable.  But if not soy, then what? Whey protein is good, but it breaks the dream of veganism. Pea protein is ok, I guess, but it's bland and not as dense as soy.  

But oats - you use oats. This is genius, because - once again, of all the grains, oats are the one that my own research found to be the least bad and the most good. And they're certainly the ones I LIKE the best for taste. They're also the only grain people can eat raw without developing nutritional issues.

Brazil nuts - best source of Selenium.

Brewer's Yeast - only non-animal source of Vitamin B-12 (other than laver seaweed, but the B-12 in that may not be bioavailable.)

Each of your ingredients made me smile as I read through the list. I know you've done your homework, tons of it, because you've come to exactly the same conclusions I did about the best vegetable sources of various nutrients.

Now, when I looked at the list I had prepared myself, before I discovered Ambronite, it was not something realistically possible for me to assemble. I had the dream of vegetarianism, even veganism, and of having a nutritionally perfect diet, but no practical way to do it. Stinging nettle? They don't sell that. I could pick it in the fields, but not year-round, etc.

You MADE the stuff - you actually DID IT

Then I discovered Ambronite, and see that you've really done the DEEP study, the DEEP research, to find the single best foods for each of the hardest-to-get nutrients on a plant-based diet. I know because you came to the same conclusions I did after my years and years of research. But you did something more than just knowing it, you did better than that - you actually MADE A PRODUCT! You don't realize just how much Ambronite means to me psychologically. The "perfect food" that years of study showed me COULD exist, actually DOES exist, because some folks in Finland MADE IT HAPPEN.

I know your product will work for the purposes I intend it, because I've done the same research you have, over many years. You've obviously done the same, independently, as a team, and no doubt using more modern techniques than the paper-and-pencil I've used. But you actually DID IT. You MADE it. So, now I can actually TEST my theory, with my body and your product, and be the vegan that I would like to be, but without harming myself over the long term the way vegans do. I have to rely on you for the accuracy of your lab testing and the accuracy of your labels, but assuming you use what you say you use, it really is the perfect human diet.

It is imperative that you not go out of business or diminish your product

You can understand, therefore, why the health of your company is very important to me. It is imperative that you not go out of business, not quit for want of profit, not sell out and diminish your product. I see you've gotten crowdfunding, all good, but if the day ever comes that you are faltering economically, then let me know and I will do whatever is in my power to pull together a group of US investors to keep you going. The only perfect complete human food on earth exists now - you made it - it is imperative that you survive and thrive as a company, so that I can obtain this product for the rest of my extended lifespan (thanks to it). And once you're big and profitable, a "working class" version of it: all the nutrition, less exotic ingredients, can be formulated to give the masses everywhere a healthy perfect diet. And then the bare-bones "African relief" version. I'm not getting ahead of myself, just looking down the road at where this can go.

I know the science that went into your formula

I know the science that went into your formula. I have never been excited about any entrepreneurial endeavor as a I am about Ambronite, because I KNOW all of the science that went into your formula - I did it all myself, by hand, over the course of a decade. You're young and a team and have computers, so you did it quicker - but you got to the right result, the truth, and you're uncompromising about it. It's just perfect. So if you start to teeter financially, let me know and I will try find you the funding to keep going. Ambronite is at least right now a bit pricey, however, nutritionally it’s perfect.

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