Nick Langan, Co-Founder at Cerebelly, joins Cheddar Innovates to discuss how they are creating science-backed baby food, and why these ingredients are so critical to brain development.

Cheddar Innovates

This Baby Food is Backed by Science

welcome back everyone to gender innovates brought to you by curiosity stream baker for channel in new york. Did you know, a baby's brain is 80% developed by the time they hit the age of three and the one key to achieving developmental milestones is nutrition. So our next guest bringing innovation to the baby food aisle creating science backed baby food. So joining us now is Nick Langdon, co founder of sarah belly. Nick. Such a pleasure to have you here. Thanks so much for joining us. So what's your mission? How did you sort of come about with this company here? Well thanks so much for having us on the show. Um Sarah Belize mission is pretty simple but I'll admit fairly ambitious, we want to change how every child needs. Um And more specifically we want to ensure that parents and their Children have access to modern science and in Sarah Belize case modern neuroscience when it comes time to deciding what they're going to feed their Children. Um and so you might ask why neuroscience and why did you choose that as a mission? Well, I like to think that neuroscience actually chose us. My co founder, who happens to be my sister is Dr Theresa prisoner who's a practicing neurosurgeon by trade. She came up with the idea for Sarah belly while she was getting her PhD in developmental neurobiology at stanford And while the science is very complex, the science linking nutrition to brain development is very complex. Her work boiled down to a fairly simple concept which is that there are 16 nutrients which have been shown to meaningfully help support brain development in Children, especially in the early stages. So Sarah Belly is the first line of Baby Foods, which ensures that parents and their kids are getting all 16 of these nutrients in every single one of our foods. And just to compare that to what else is out there. Other store bought foods have at most three or four of these 16 crucial nutrients included in them. And what I think is important here Is that it's not three or four nutrients per pouch. It's that 12 or 13 of these nutrients, again, that have been shown to support brain development in Children are completely absent from any store bought food other than Sarah Belly. And that was kind of the shocking revelation or discovery that my sister made that really set us up on this mission to change how the Children eat. Yes. So nick, let's talk about those ingredients. What are the ingredients that you use that stand out from the competition? And more importantly, I think why are these ingredients so good for babies? Sure. You know, I think the first thing is that we put a lot of deliberate thought into every ingredient that goes into Sarah Belly so that we can hit these nutritional standards of including these 16 nutrients. So, so there's no throwaway ingredients into what goes into Sarah Belly, but to go more specifically into your question. Um there are a few that leap out at me, for example, shiitake mushrooms, right? Something that's really not common in baby foods but that's very high in selenium and it's a selenium is a nutrient that is commonly deficient in north american diets, especially for Children. Um And I think it's really important. It helps support the development of the primary motor motor cortex which is responsible for fundamental movement. You know, Another one might be kale. I think we've all heard about how kale is a superfood and that's absolutely true. It's high in vitamin A. Vitamin D. Vitamin B six amongst many other nutrients. But you take one of those nutrients, vitamin B six for example. Well that's crucial to the development of the cerebellum which you know helps with coordination in the developing brain. So so these are the kinds of things that we have in in sarah belly that are generally not available in any other baby food. I think the only other thing that I point out is that we also like to include spices. So we'll have cumin, rosemary, thyme in our foods which we thought was really important because it helps a child's palate developed so that they're not just addicted to sweets. They're not addicted to eating just applesauce and carrot puree, Which is gonna create lifelong good habits when it comes to eating nick, as I mentioned earlier, baby's brain is 80% developed by the time they're just three years old, which is such a shocking statistic, what are some of the key stages throughout this development that we have to be aware of here? Sure, well, you make a good point and it's and it's an amazing fact how fast the brain grows, especially in those first three years of life. And the important thing to remember is that brain development is a, it's a constant process, right? And it's something that's gonna continue on beyond those three years. But like you pointed out, those three years are really crucial. And especially when you think about that 1st 18-24 months, if you're a parent, you know, there are tons of firsts in that timeframe, your baby's first word, your baby's first step. The first time they recognize you as dad or mom, um, you know, which is an amazing occurrence. Well, what's interesting is that each of those firsts actually corresponds to a specific area of the brain that's growing and it is reflected in these physical attributes. So, for example, I mentioned, you know, the first time your baby recognizes you as mom or dad, that's an amazing time. You know, it's one of the best things that happens as a parent when you're, when you're raising your young child. Well, that's actually an area of the brain called the uniform gyros in rapid development. That area of the brain is specifically related to facial recognition. So it's it's a very cool thing that, as your child is hitting these milestones, they're directly related. Uh two areas of the brain developing and and one other interesting fact that I think is worth pointing out that my sister mentioned to me. That was shocking was that the different areas of the brain are exactly that very different. So that the proteins in one area of the brain, say our cerebellum can be as different from another area of the brain as your lung is to your heart. So it's really important that we allow this incredible organ to develop The best possible way Nick I have less than 60 seconds. What's next for you guys at Sara Belly? You know, I think the big thing about Sarah Valley and is, and what makes it different is that it was based on a scientific discovery, it was based on neuroscience. Um that showed that these 16 nutrients are so crucial to, to brain development in Children. The good news for parents is that there is so much science out there that has not been used yet and has not been translated or product. Ized for their easy use. So I'm not going to tell you exactly where we're going. But needless to say we're going to stay true to our basis and follow the science and make sure that parents and kids get to benefit from all the hard work that our scientists are doing really interesting stuff. You guys are working on nick langdon is the co founder of sara belly nick. Thank you so much for joining us.