A Sydney cafe has turned vegan food on its head with the inclusion of a charcoal-based burger, pancakes and a charcoal and lychee tonic.
Real Grounded Cafe is the culmination of a health-journey of founder Ursula Zajaczkowski, who went vegan after a scary trip to hospital due to increasing sensitivities to animal products.
‘A healthy lifestyle is important to me and I first came across activated charcoal when I had an acute allergic reaction a few years ago,’ she told Daily Mail Australia.
‘I was pumped up with drugs to combat the reactions but that didn’t make things any better; so I reviewed everything that I consumed in order to to turn my life around.’
A Sydney cafe has turned vegan food on it’s head with the inclusion of a charcoal based burger, pancakes and a charcoal and lychee tonic
Ursula slowly eliminated ingredients from her diet and once she went completely vegan her allergies seemed to stop.
She made the decision to offer charcoal foods in October this year once she researched the ingredient’s health properties.
As well as being a detoxifying property, charcoal is also cited as an ingredient which can help to beat hangovers:
‘For me, activated charcoal was the only thing I could take to absorb and bind any toxins that had entered my system,’ Ursula said.
‘As activated charcoal absorbs both both toxins and nutrients, I’ve only ever taken it in light moderation as an internal cleanser for my body.’
Real Grounded Cafe is the culmination of a health-journey of founder Ursula Zajaczkowski
She made the decision to offer charcoal foods in October this year once she researched the ingredients health properties
Activated charcoal has long been a staple in hospitals, where it is used to prevent poisons and lethal overdoses while also preventing hangovers and mitigating the side effects of food poisoning.
The cafe’s head chef, Elaine Ramiro, worked for three months on these food items as she wanted to make sure that they were perfect.
It was these three months that helped her give birth to detoxifying pancakes de noir, vegan chickpea burger with Charcoal Brioche and ‘Char-Chee Tonic’.
The cafe’s head chef, Elaine Ramiro, worked for three months on these food items as she wanted to make sure that they were perfect
Ursula hopes that Real Grounded cafe will impress both vegan and non-vegan eaters
Don’t be fooled, activated charcoal isn’t the same as the material you throw in your backyard barbecue.
Food-grade activated charcoal is most frequently produced by heating coconut shells to extremely high temperatures until they are carbonised, or completely burned up.
The resulting ash is then processed with steam or hot air at equally high temperatures to produce a microporous structure.
It was the three months that helped the chef give birth to detoxifying pancakes de noir, vegan chickpea burger with Charcoal Brioche and ‘Char-Chee Tonic’
Ursula hopes that Real Grounded cafe will impress both vegan and non-vegan eaters.
‘I want everyone to be completely satisfied after a meal at our cafe and for everyone to discover that vegan food is not just about eating salad or having a plain, bland meal,’ she said.
‘All the usual food and drinks favourites that you’d find in most cafes can be found at Real Grounded, using creative and inventive plant-based substitutions that taste amazing.’