Imagine that I gave you an artisan cookie, and told you that you could choose from the following adjectives to describe it: plant-based, healthy, and delicious.
In most cases, you could probably only truthfully apply two at a time. One can easily make a plant-based cookie that’s healthy, but it’ll probably taste like cardboard. Likewise, one can make a plant-based cookie that’s delicious, but doing so usually means loading it up with sugar, wheat, and other tasty yet not-so-good-for-you ingredients.
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Love + Chew, however, has done the seemingly impossible: they’ve created a cookie that ticks all three boxes. The San Francisco-based cookie company is the creation of entrepreneur Lauren Chew. When Chew’s stepmother switched to a plant-based diet, Chew — who has been a vegetarian or vegan for 14 years — began cooking alongside her, creating gluten-free cookies. That shared cooking experience inspired Chew to launch her own cookie brand. Chew used one of her stepmom’s recipes and started baking plant-based cookies in her own kitchen.
Initially, she sold the cookies to an audience of friends and family. Chew’s business grew, and her friends connected her into Bay Area tech companies who featured her cookies among their often-legendary snack selections intended for hungry coders. When the pandemic hit, though, Chew had to adapt. She started selling directly to consumers through a website. She also landed a contract to distribute her cookies via Whole Foods — a huge deal for a small food brand — and began to sell them on Amazon, too.
The move appears to be working. Love + Chew has continued to grow, and now has a devoted following in the Bay Area and beyond. The “love” part of the company’s name isn’t just a marketing ploy, either. Chew’s company is female and AAPI-owned. (Chew comes from a Chinese and Polish background and is connected to the Bay Area’s Jewish community as a member of Congregation Emanu-El, too). Her products are certified gluten-free, certified vegan, and largely organic. Love + Chew donates a portion of its proceeds to Oasis for Girls, a Bay Area charity that empowers girls from marginalized communities.
When I first heard about Love + Chew, I’ll admit that I was skeptical. I’m an unapologetic meat-eater, and I love buttery, gluten-y cookies. Love + Chew offered to send me a box of their cookies, though, to try and change my mind.
They’ve succeeded. When my box arrived, it was immediately clear that Love + Chew puts a lot of thought into building an experience around their products. My box was filled with individually wrapped cookies arranged in neat rows and surrounded by festive pink confetti. It felt like a crafty friend had put together a little cookie-driven care package for me. There was even a sheet of stickers with squirrels, pumpkins, and other Fall themes.
My box included Love + Chew’s banana bread, cherry almond, chocolate chia, and mocha chip cookies, as well as a just-launched limited edition pumpkin spice flavor for Fall. The base underlying all of Chew’s cookies is a combination of almond flour and date paste. The company calls its products “Superfood Cookies,” and several of the cookies incorporate chia seeds, a purported superfood. Surprisingly, the cookies have no additional sweeteners and none of the unpronounceable binders and emulsifiers you often find in gluten-free baked goods.
They’re also really yummy. Chew’s cookies are dense and (appropriate, given their name) chewy. They taste like you took the center of a fig newton and amplified it into a 2-ounce confection you can hold in your hand, or throw into your gym bag to eat after a workout. Each flavor feels distinctive and true to the plants it incorporates, and there are none of the weird, alien aftertastes I sometimes detect in vegan products.
The route from Chew’s kitchen to the neatly-packaged cookie sold at Whole Foods seems unusually direct for a health food product. Love + Chew’s cookies don’t quite taste homemade, but they do taste like something made from real, recognizable, honest ingredients. My favorite flavor was Banana Bread, which is loaded up with real banana, chia seeds, and almond butter. I also loved the Mocha Chip cookie, which has a deep cappuccino-like coffee flavor.
Chew told Alix Wall of the Jweekly that she initially struggled to figure out where in Whole Foods her cookies belonged. Were they a dessert or a health food item? She ultimately found that they sold best when shelved alongside energy bars.
That feels absolutely right to me. I’ve found that my family has begun grabbing Love + Chew cookies to have as a quick breakfast on busy mornings or to eat as a post-workout snack. The cookies have up to 8 grams of protein, and because they’re individually wrapped, they’re easy to grab and eat on the go. I’ve found that the lack of added sweeteners also means they provide a nice burst of energy, but without the sugar-induced crash, you sometimes get with sweet, dense meal bars.
As a butter lover, I wouldn’t necessarily eat a Love + Chew cookie for dessert. (Though I can see how they’d be a godsend if you’re gluten-free or vegan and are craving a cookie). But I’d absolutely grab one as a tasty, sweet, sustaining pick-me-up before heading out on a hike, or as a late-afternoon snack to make it through a marathon writing session. I also love that Love + Chew is connected to the San Francisco community and is clearly working hard to give back to the region which helped the company launch and grow.
If you’re gluten-free or vegan (or both), you should absolutely grab some of the company’s cookies today. But even if you’re not, you should still try them. You might find that you like having a tastier, cleaner alternative to a Powerbar the next time you hit the gym.
You can buy Love + Chew cookies on the company’s website, or at many Whole Foods Market stores in Northern California. You can also find smaller versions of the company’s cookies for nationwide delivery on Amazon.
