I used to say my annual January health kick was motivated purely by vanity and immaturity – and it still is to a great degree – but these days I also just feel poisoned by January 2, and look forward to my post-holiday cleanup as much as the bacchanal that necessitated it.
I’ll be relying on these local woman-owned business to help me start the new year afresh.
Bold, Exciting Beverages, Sans Sugar
New Orleans entrepreneur Claudia Benevento, a native of Guatemala and resident of Uptown New Orleans, grew up drinking sweetened hibiscus tea. She created Citronola, her line of beverages, as a more health-conscious variety of the drink she grew up on, using pineapple peel or clove in her bottled beverages to lend a naturally sweet flavor with no added sugar or sweeteners. Citronola beverages are unsweetened, caffeine free with and made 100 percent natural ingredients. The company also caters with delivery of a variety of lemonades and both sweetened and unsweetened teas delivered in jugs or through Tap Truck NOLA.
Citronola, Citronola.com
From Boring to Stunning:
Just Add Sauce
Be it a ho-hum weeknight family meal, a dinner party or a luncheon for friends, chances are you’ll win no fans with grilled chicken, broiled fish or steamed vegetables. But adding a flavorful, exciting sauce will change the game. Lauren Mora had the “aha moment” while cooking a stuck-at-home pandemic meal for her young family in October 2020. She quickly forged a partnership with Ochsner’s Eat Fit NOLA program and built her products around the organization’s principles.
The result is four distinct sauces: Green Dream, Full Gusto, Voo Doo and Jazmo, with more flavors on the way. Each eight-ounce package of sauce costs $8 and is available for pickup from Mora’s Lakeview home. She also does local deliveries every Tuesday. She’s currently marketing her rapidly growing business through Instagram and Facebook and encouraging people to sign up for the company’s weekly order email.
“My products are getting people excited about dinner,” Mora says. “The sauces are easy to use and don’t feel like a ‘health’ food, just a ridiculously flavor-slammed sauce.”
Lively Sauces, LivelySauces.com, @LivelySauces
No Excuses:
Healthy Delicious Meals Customized Just for You
A lifelong health and fitness enthusiast, Barbara Blank launched Clean Creations in 2010 when she was 23 years old. Since then, what began as a meal subscription and delivery business servicing the New Orleans area has exploded with hundreds of clients spread across the Northshore and west all the way to Baton Rouge. Clients enjoy never-frozen meals with big flavors made with fresh ingredients and zero preservatives that can be customized to support any dietary restriction including gluten free, pescatarian, vegan, vegetarian and pre-diabetic.
A grab-and-go location on the West Bank is open daily, and catering is available with hundreds of choices like Agave Lime Shrimp, Korean Pork Tenderloin and Sesame Lettuce Wraps, as well as breakfast items, desserts and snacks.
Clean Creations, 1105 Lafayette St., Gretna, 504-309-5427, CleanCreations.com
