Flax Snax

1998 Dave bounced back and forth between 245- 255lbs depending what holiday it was.His two sons were also packing on the pounds eating ramen noodles and sugary cereals. His wife Colleen also started noticing cuts on his hands went weeks to heal. But it was a spider bite on his foot and a phone call from is dad that changed the way his family would look at food.

While crawling under the crawl space in the house he was bite by a brown spider. Not a serious or deadly bite but it was not healing the way it should. The red pimple like bite was now turning brown and spreading. His father called and told him that his mom's Uncle, the last of David's grandmothers 15 brothers and sisters, had died. Remembering him as funny jolly guy Dave ask what did he die from, he would hear the words that most of the family had died from. Complications due to diabetes. He had remembered seeing his grandmother before she had died in 1989 in a wheel chair and on kidney dialysis machine. He would later find out that at least 11 of his grandmother siblings had died from the same thing. Not one had lived past the age of 75 if they were lucky. On his father's David uncle and close cousin had also died due to diabetic complications. Colleen was already reading up on symptoms from the spider bite had suspected he was borderline diabetic.

Things changed in a hurry.

First things to go was tortillas, and soda. Dave was eating up to 3 to 5 tortillas with every meal. At 25 to 30 grams of simple carbs he was now seeing how quickly the pounds were adding up. Fresh vegetables and fruit replaced mashed potatoes, pasta and cakes. He was drinking up to a 2liter bottle of soda a day.Water replaced soda. In a matter of weeks pounds dropped and the spider bite healed. Colleen's mind was now in high gear.

Coming from a long line of polish bakers Colleen also knew diabetes issues were in her family. Colleen was buying sugar free cereals and pancake mixes for the family. But there was a problem. Her two sons ages 10 and 8 werent biting. "Mom this isnt very good" was a common breakfast phrase. Well it was then that she knew she had to come up with her own version.  Now she had the boys eating and it was no problem weaning them off of boxes of mac n cheese and ramen noodles. Thinking that there had to be other mothers with this issue Flax Z Snax was born.

In July of 2001 Production of the first low carb suger free hot cereal was out. Three months later Flax Z Snax pancake and waffle mix was introduced. But there still wasnt a good cold cereal or granola out there low in carbs and sugar. A year later FlaxZsnax Cinnamon granola was introduce and the Pandora's box was opened. In less then a year Dave and Colleen's little company triple its sales of Flax Z Snax products. As Flax Z Snax completes 11 years they now have four varieties of granola, three gluten free granolas, 6 flavors of hot cereal, two flavors of sugar free candy coated nuts and now a line of cookies out this year. Dave and Colleen still follow a healthy sugarfree and low carb diet.

" You cannot go back to eating what put you there in the first place. This is a lifestyle change that you have to accept. I do not want to be in no wheel chair missing fingers and toes hooked up to a machine. People have to realize that this is a way of life" - David Martinez

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