Behind Lizi's Granola

The GoodCarb Food Company has all the ingredients for healthy living thanks to founders Dr Mick Shaw and his wife Lizi. They are true foodies with a sound background in both organic farming and science.

They set up the company in 2003 with a view to combining their lifelong love of food with their experience of farming, food, and science. The idea was to promote that sense of wellbeing induced by good food without creating the artificial blood sugar fluctuations produced by so many convenience foods.

“We were farming organically in West Wales when Lizi experimented with low carbohydrate diets and lost weight”, explains Mick. “I became intrigued by how low carbohydrate diets worked. But as organic farmers we were appalled by the artificial ingredients in many low carb food products and thought we could do better!

“I am an experimental physicist by training and discovered that it was a simple matter to measure how our blood sugar levels were affected by what we ate using self-test meters made for diabetics,” adds Mick.

The couple started to read as much as they could about the role of carbohydrates in food. It was clear from the latest scientific research papers that the Glycemic Load (GL), which is a direct measure of how food affects blood sugar, was the most important thing to measure in their new products. Lizi took this on board in the kitchen when she started experimenting with recipes.

Mick also knew that the best way to test the GL in foods was on an empty stomach, and this meant that they spent many a Sunday morning in bed pricking fingers to measure the GL of Lizi’s latest food creation.

As the development work progressed, the couple became increasingly confident that their concept was viable. They also realised that they had a unique selling point. “We are the first company in the World to measure the GL of our products, and that, together with our insistence on natural ingredients, gives our customers a great deal of confidence in the health credentials of our products,” says Lizi.

So convinced were they that they sold their farm to go into commercial production. And they began getting their final testing done under laboratory conditions at the University of Wales in Swansea.

It was then that The Good Carb Food Company was born! None of this came as a surprise to friends and family as Lizi and Mick’s new venture was considered a natural progression for the couple as they have always been believers in ‘natural eating’ principles.

“It takes millions of years for our bodies to evolve and we are simply not designed to eat the highly refined carbohydrates which form the major part of many people’s diets today”, explains Mick.

In addition to their strong beliefs, Mick comes from a family of bakers in the Lake District and his scientific career has made him a leading authority on lasers. Lizi developed her interest in cooking during time spent in Africa and the Middle East and also learned a lot about people’s relationship with food while running a successful B&B in the Cotswolds. They are not afraid of hard work and believe that their experience in converting a 70 acre farm on the Cardigan coast in West Wales to organic standards has helped them to develop a deeper understanding of why good food is so important.

“We used to farm pedigree Welsh Black cattle and Welsh Mountain sheep. Welsh Blacks are the oldest breed in the UK dating back to Roman times and the beef has a superior taste and texture to more recent breeds”, explains Lizi.

“It was here that we became increasingly interested in the taste and healthy eating aspects of food. Once their farm had been successfully converted, they became part of an organic farmer’s cooperative where Lizi developed organic lamb burgers and ready meals which have won prizes at the Organic Food Awards and The Taste of Wales Awards.

The couple now feel that they are on the brink of another, equally satisfying adventure. Mick and Lizi believe that the time has come to share their experiences and their enthusiasm for food with the rest of the world and are looking forward to being part of a new food and nutritional revolution!