As I planned to do yesterday, I tried mixing the PB2 powdered peanut butter into my Keto Chow powder all at once while I was mixing a week instead of adding 12g into each individual meal. Worked out great! It simplified making the meals (only had to weigh once, instead of twice) and when mixed up fully there were less clumps (almost none) of peanut butter, comes out pretty smooth in fact. I like it.

I’ve thought about offering it as an option for the Rich Chocolate (it was also good in the Strawberry but I’m weird) but I’m still trying to work out the implications of adding it and the feasibility and costs. This is further complicated by the next bit of news:

Getting rid of the Ghetto

I’ve always been super open (regarding making powdered foods/soylent) about who I am, what I’m offering and all the information I can throw out there. I have been using standard gallon size freezer bags to package People Chow and then Keto Chow. They were inexpensive, sturdy, easy to get more of if I ran out but the biggest feature that kept me using them was: efficiency of space. Because the bags are pliable and compact, I can fit 4 weeks of Keto Chow into a single USPS Medium Flat Rate box, two in a Regional Rate A and one in a flat rate padded envelope. It means I can ship stuff at a far lower cost to the customer and I consider that a huge win. But I’ll see criticism about the presentation often enough that I’m going to do something about it. Last night I bought a label printer and a bunch of 4×8 stock and whipped up a label for Keto Chow:

Hey hey, that’s much better already! From here on out, all packages I’m shipping will have these labels on them. But I’m going to take it a bit further: also last night I used the five foil bags I bought last week and packaged up some Keto Chow in it:

I didn’t have a heat sealer yet so this first group got ironed shut =). The sealed part is tear-off and there’s a zipper closure as well. They’re 5 mil thick (really beefy) and look real nice. My wife thinks I should put the label vertical but I think folding over the top half wouldn’t work as well. Incidentally, anybody have a source for a 2 quart or 3 quart bag? These hold a gallon and are 40% too large, hence the folded over top part. These bags to look MOAR better-er but present some logistical problems: first and foremost they take up more room. I was barely able to squeeze three into a medium flat rate box (that holds 4 of the other packages), couldn’t even fit one in a Regional A box and barely fit one into a padded flat rate envelope. This morning I noticed that I might have better luck with the “tall and skinny” versions of these boxes so I ordered a bunch (though the USPS is terribly slow getting me boxes) and I’ll try them out. I also ordered more of the foil bags and grabbed a heat sealer. Hopefully sometime next week I’ll be doing another round of tests. Ideally I’ll be able to keep the shipping costs the same but I’m not going to hold my breath, doubly so if I decide to do a peanut butter flavor which adds another 15% to the volume of the powder.