Israeli papa’s food-tech startup brings low-carb pizza to diabetics like his daughter

A decade ago, Ran and Dorit Hirsch struggled to find tasty and nutritious food options that would satisfy their daughter, who has Type 1 diabetes, without requiring the rest of the family to make major sacrifices.

That changed when the couple took Hadar, then 8 years old, for a first visit with Dr. Mariela Glandt, a 20-year veteran in the field who backs an innovative diabetes treatment centered around a low-carb ketogenic diet.

After lecturing her new patients about the effect that carbohydrates have on blood sugar levels and how eating fewer carbs can help keep them balanced, the Harvard-trained endocrinologist ended the visit at her Tel Aviv clinic surprisingly by handing Hadar a chocolate praline as a treat — one that she said was as tasty as a traditional praline and did not raise blood glucose levels.

Glandt, whose father was diabetic, had been quietly developing the chocolates in her home kitchen for years. When she revealed that she had a dream of making chocolate pralines available to every diabetes patient in the world, Hirsch — a lawyer by profession with a passion for biology — instantly extended his hand and said, “I’m your new partner — let’s make your dream come true.”

Their new company, Eatsane, was founded shortly thereafter in 2017 and now produces lines of low-carb ketogenic bread products sold online and at a variety of health food and other stores across Israel. Eatsane’s hamburger buns are used at the Israeli BBB burger restaurant chain, while local Papa John’s locations offer its pizza crusts as an option.

Since 2020, the startup has grown its annual sales in Israel from NIS 1.4 million ($419,000) to NIS 7.8 million ($2.3 million).

Not by bread alone

Diabetes is a chronic condition in which the body does not make enough or cannot respond to insulin, a hormone created by the pancreas that allows blood sugar to enter cells to be used as energy. This leads to high levels of sugar remaining in the bloodstream. By 2040, around 1 million Israeli citizens are expected to have Type 2 diabetes. The country’s population is currently around 10 million.

“Type 1 diabetes means you don’t have insulin in your body, and you need to become your own pancreas by moderating what and how much you eat, check how much sugar will become available in your blood, and inject insulin accordingly to try to balance it,” Hirsch told The Times of Israel.

“We are a family that enjoys and celebrates around food at family events and with friends, and I didn’t want Hadar to miss out.”

Since 2017, passionate foodie Hirsch has partnered with Glandt to develop diverse low-carb, high-protein, high-fiber food products that contain good fats and no artificial sweeteners or preservatives. The products are based on unique algorithms and research by Glandt, who created a trade secret-protected formula or method designed to lower the so-called glycemic index in foods.

Blood sugar levels are connected to a food’s glycemic index, a measure of how a particular food impacts blood sugar levels over a certain amount of time. Foods with a higher index, such as white bread, tend to raise blood sugar levels faster than those with lower scores.

“We believe that the reason why most diets fail is that they change people’s habits and require them to adjust their lifestyles, and therefore are hard to maintain in the long run,” said Hirsch. “We are taking on the ‘big no-nos,’ whether it is bread, bourekas, or pizza, with a solution that focuses on changing [traditionally high-carb] foods without compromising on taste and natural ingredients.”

Over the past eight years, Hirsch and Glandt gathered chefs, dietitians, and food tech developers to create low-carb food products with a low glycemic index. Initially, the duo sought to produce chocolate pralines, which proved too expensive, before focusing on creating a variety of low-carb breads.

“We started as a grassroots venture in my law office, and every time we needed another employee, I fired another lawyer to have another room, before turning all my attention and efforts to build Eatsane,” said Hirsch.

All Eatsane products bear a stamp of approval from the Israel Diabetes Association as well as Glandt’s signature.

Kids didn’t notice the swap to low-carb

The startup’s breads contain some gluten and plant-based protein, and come in three loaf varieties — sourdough, rustic, and nuts and seeds — which have about a fifth of the amount of carbs found in regular bread.

The vegan breads are made of water, nuts, and seed flours (a combination of almond, sesame, walnut, and flax seed), whole spelt flour, nutritional fiber, baking yeast, sourdough, corn starch, and table salt. Each loaf comes sliced in a bag and matches the size and texture of light or whole grain breads. The slices are fluffy with some density and have a nutty taste and an outer layer of seeds (flax, oats, and sunflower seeds).

Eatsane bread has a glycemic index value of about 30 compared with its wheat bread counterpart at about 70, and keto bread at about 40, Hirsch said.

“I used to send my kids to school with a sandwich of avocado and eggs, but in every slice of bread, there were about 15 grams of carbs, or 30 grams in a sandwich,” said Hirsch.

“Without telling the kids, I changed the bread and now I’m sending them to school with the same avocado and egg sandwich, but with our bread, which has about 1.2 grams of carbs per slice or less than 3 grams per sandwich.”

“That saves them six or seven teaspoons of sugar only in the bread, as about four grams of carbs equals a teaspoon of sugar,” he explained.

In addition to the pizza crusts sold at Papa John’s and hamburger buns, other lines of Eatsane’s products include small-bite, round crackers; crunchy rosemary-flavored square sesame and flax crackers; cheese bourekas; pita bread, hamburger buns, and frozen pizzas with an almond flour and seed base.

The startup has raised funds led by investors including Israel Makov, former CEO of Teva Pharmaceutical Industries; the Mexico-headquartered Bimbo bakery group; Steve Baldinger of the North American Baldinger bakery; and other angel investors and venture capital firms. It was chosen by PepsiCo to be one of 10 companies to take part in its Nutrition Greenhouse incubator.

Looking ahead, Hirsch and Glandt seek to expand their products to North America and Europe to help people “manage their weight and health without compromising on their lifestyle.”