Who is Cave and Coconut?

Today I am happy to share with you an interesting interview to the beautiful Imane Sqalli, founder of the French brand Cave & Coconut.

Imane is a smart, lovely woman with a warm, bright smile that I had the pleasure to meet last week, during lunch at one of my favourite Parisian vegan restaurants, L’Abattoir Végétal.

Imane launched her brand, Cave & Coconut, a couple of months ago: it is about paleo diet and deliciously healthy organic paleo cookies which happen to be also gluten free, refined sugar free and vegan (so no cow milk or eggs whatsoever).

Thanks to all the goodness of nuts, fruit and coconut, Cave & Coconut cookies are a real boost of energy and taste!

I am having one while I am writing this article and I can tell, that it is trues 🙂

Chiara : How did you start to get involved in a different way of nourishing yourself?

Imane : It all began almost 15 years ago: I went though a tough moment in my life, I had a great life, great job, great family but somehow I wasn’t feeling good. I started to read about nutrition and one of my first books was « Et si c’était le gluten? » (and if it was gluten?) by French author Philippe Barraqué. His experience touched me a lot and gluten was the first thing I decided to eliminate from my diet. After a couple of days, I began to feel better, no more pain nor sadness. I could experience real results and it was great! I kept studying about nutrition; writing emails to doctors and researchers I got interested into; I also read about people who had completely different point of views form them to compare and form myself an opinion. My travels were all about meeting with these inspiring people. In years I got rid also of refined sugar and cereals.

Chiara : How did you learn to cook differently?

Imane : All of my recipes come from cook books of professional chefs; I then adapted them to my diet replacing one ingredient with another and doing many tests in order to get it right. This is how I got the idea of making cookies and worked on my own paleo recipe.

Chiara : Why did you choose a paleo diet ?

Imane : Cereals are not easy to digest for our organism. For example we can’t eat them raw, we have to cook them. Going gluten free, it helps as foods are easier to digest. It’ is better to choose foods that are easy to digest in order to preserve a maximum of energy in our body. Eating good proteins helps as well. I am not vegan, just paleo, and from time to time I love eating wild fish for its good fats. 

Chiara : Do you have a precious piece of advice to share with us?

Imane : Good fats are key for our organism: our brains is made of 80% fats so we have to nourish it properly. Coconut oil is great for exemple as it also cleanse our intestine. Having one table spoon per day is a good habit to adopt. Then there also the almonds and other nuts which have precious fats that are good for us. Detox too is something to do from time to time.

Chiara : A food to avoid?

Imane : Refined sugars: our body takes time to digest them, we lose energy and after we eat them, we are hungry again way too soon.

Chiara : What are your main clients today?

Imane : I have many professional American sport men from US who eat paleo as they perform better; they love my cookies. In Paris I work with the Maison Dior and several Hollywood stars ask for my cookies. I have also started to be distributed in some boutiques in Paris and I am very happy about it.

Chiara : and I can’t wait to eat more of them…they are insanely good!