Karen Newby, BSC Nutritional Medicine is the co-founder of Alchemy Superblends - here she talks about her career and inspiration that led her to launch her own business...

As a nutritional therapist I'm really passionate about supporting people’s health and vitality through food and especially plants! We just don’t eat enough of them - UK children on average aren’t even consuming 3 of their 5 a day. My business, Alchemy Organic Super Blends grew out of this desire to produce a plant-based product that had therapeutic benefits - nutritional therapy in a pouch.

For example, I often see people in practice who are tired all the time; so I blended Energy Elixir that contains pea protein to give a drip feed of energy and superfoods with high amounts of vitamin C, B vits and iron to help combat fatigue as well as maca to help with stamina and strength.

I’ve been a nutritional therapist for the past 5 years and before then I worked in the advertising industry. Unfortunately I know only too well how influential advertising can be (especially to children) so I get very frustrated at how the food industry markets it’s products - food labelling in the UK can be very misleading in my opinion, especially when it comes to sugar.

Nutritional therapy is hugely rewarding. It’s incredibly satisfying when you hear such positive feedback from patients, who came to see me for weight loss and have not only lost weight but feel more energised and have better skin and glossier hair!

Food really can be your medicine. I decided to develop my own plant based protein powders with the added benefits of superfoods for patients and friends and then it kind of grew, and that’s how Alchemy started really.

At the beginning of 2015, I devised four protein powder and superfood blends for common health needs and along with my business partner, we launched Alchemy Organic Super Blends in July this year. There is a great quote for a famous writer called Michael Pollan which I wholeheartedly agree with and is my kind of adopted mantra when developing programmes for patients: ‘Eat Food. Mainly plants. Not too much.’ Alchemy really fits into this - not enough people are eating enough micronutrients (vitamins and minerals) which are the spark plugs of the body so I was very keen to make people aware that food can give you huge hits of these nutrients without the need for synthetic supplements, which is why all the packs have a full nutrient analysis on the back.

I very much follow the 80/20 rule with my own diet. If you give your body 80% of the good stuff, then it can handle 20% rubbish! But also the more whole food you eat the less your body craves the bad stuff. But I am in no way a saint and do allow my children to have sweets etc as I also think this and become an obsession if you don’t allow them to have some. I certainly couldn’t live without chocolate and the odd caffeinated coffee is essential when faced with some financial spreadsheets!

When I'm not working I love to swim first thing in the morning to help process what I have to do that day and also love a Friday night in watching TV with a curry! We hope to launch two further blends next year and hope to move into other markets such as Australia where my business partner is from -so watch this space!