The story behind a “game changing” smoothie company that formed its roots in the Hill City
If it wasn’t for a chance encounter at a Christmas party in Lynchburg over a decade ago, Tiffany Tatom might never have met Mary Cope. But meet they did—and over a three-hour conversation, they realized how much they had in common. They also had no idea at the close of that conversation they’d one day go into business together as health coaches and, later, as the founders of Live Pure Smoothie Cubes.
During that first meeting, Mary told Tiffany she was currently enrolled at the Institute for Integrative Nutrition (IIN) in New York City. Meanwhile, Tiffany had been suffering with digestion issues since childhood. She had seen countless doctors, who had run many tests, but no one could give her any answers—and no one ever asked what she was eating. At the age of 30, she developed a perforated ulcer in her stomach and had emergency surgery. Years after the surgery she continued to suffer and desperately wanted relief.
A week after meeting Mary and learning about IIN, Tiffany signed up as well and started working toward her career as a health coach. “I learned about every diet imaginable and was taught from the most prominent doctors from all over the world. I began learning about my body and the connection between food allergies and intolerances and how they can affect our digestion,” she explains.
On a personal level, she realized she had many food intolerances that were causing those painful stomach issues. “As I learned about what did and did not affect me, I slowly modified my diet and my life literally changed. I rarely have any symptoms, have so much energy and overall feel great,” she says.
After graduation, Tiffany began health coaching—teaching clients to read nutrition labels, “clean” up their pantries, cook healthy meals, make good choices at the grocery store, and use diet journals.
Then in 2013, Tiffany and Mary joined forces to start a corporate wellness company where they worked with more than 1,000 people. They kept hearing the same complaints—clients wanted healthy food… fast. “We found that people are simply confused by what to eat and often feel defeated. We had to reteach their brains to eat real, whole food,” Mary says. “We also taught people how to prepare food quickly. Everyone is so busy and preparing a healthy meal seems daunting. We took their favorite recipes, cleaned them up and made sure they had a feasible list of go-to items.”
The women also wanted to get greens into everyone’s breakfast but knew no one wanted to start the day with a salad. That’s how they ended up in the smoothie business.
“We wanted to offer something that hit all the marks for all walks of life. Fast and delicious—no more throwing out old produce—and fuels you to get to the next meal,” Mary says.
Their green smoothie, they now call the Game Changer, was born. It includes greens (such as spinach) for energy, peanut butter to keep you full, cinnamon to reduce inflammation, as well as a date, a banana and probiotics. It helped their clients cut down on processed sugar, gain energy, lose weight and so
much more.
But even with those incredible results, they didn’t stop there. Once Tiffany and Mary perfected the Game Changer recipe, they pictured their smoothie arriving ready-to-go in a neat cube. All someone would have to do was add a liquid, blend and sip away.
After a trial and error process—a lot of taste testing, dumping and starting over—the superfood smoothie cube was created.
“The hard part is getting all the nutritionals to meet our standards while keeping the flavor and consistency on point. It’s easy to make a smoothie taste great with lots of dates, bananas, and honey. But we wanted to keep our smoothies with no more natural sugar than if you were to eat an apple,” explains Tiffany. “I can tell you once we got it right we both knew it. Especially when we would taste test them with kids. Kids don’t lie.”
In 2017, they launched Live Pure Smoothie Cubes, which can be shipped to every state in the US except Alaska. They currently have seven flavors that can be mixed and matched to create well over 15 smoothies.
For flavor inspiration, Live Pure looks at flavors in ice cream, blended coffee drinks, and juices. They follow the trending ingredients but also utilize classic healthy foods with staying power.
Each ingredient has a purpose. For example, the Acai Maqui Smoothie is loaded with antioxidants, which help protect your cells. “The acai berry may support weight loss, healthy skin and can be anti-aging. We added strawberries and raspberries because they are high in dietary fiber, and manganese, which aids in digestion. Fiber also helps you feel full!” Tiffany explains. This particular smoothie also includes the metabolism boosting maqui berry and lucuma, a superfood to help promote hair, skin and nail growth.
In addition to fruits and vegetables, every smoothie contains healthy fats to keep you feeling full and satisfied. They grind their own almond, cashew and peanut butter. And, as promised, superfoods are included in every cube. (A superfood is a nutrient-rich food considered to be especially beneficial for health and well-being.)
Also, there are approximately five billion CFU’s of high quality probiotics in each smoothie to help boost immunity and gut health.
The results are real. Tiffany and Mary say their smoothie cube customers report successes such as lower blood pressure, bad cholesterol and blood sugar. Customers have also told them about reduced inflammation and pain. Other benefits include weight loss, increased energy, and clearer skin.
“I am a true believer that cutting refined sugar and adding high antioxidant and nutrient dense raw foods to your diet can do wonders for your skin. When I make a continuous effort to cut out processed foods or use our smoothies to replace any sugar cravings, I can tell a real difference,” says Mary.
They found most clients with acne, eczema, and digestive issues were often gluten- or dairy-intolerant. Live Pure smoothies are vegan, gluten free, dairy free, and organic.
Live Pure tries to source their ingredients flash frozen but, when possible, they prefer to buy local and support farmers. Customers often comment on how fresh the frozen smoothies taste and Tiffany says this is because they only source from reliable and certified suppliers to ensure the perfect flavor every time.
Smoothies are great healthy meal replacements as well as pre-workout snacks (giving your body energy in the form of carbohydrates). You can also blend one after you hit the gym.
“Just grab your favorite cubes and add in some grass-fed collagen to support your joint health or a clean protein powder. A scoop of nut butter is one of our favorites too. Post workout snack—done in under a minute,” she says.
Quick, convenient, healthy—the Live Pure team created a product to check off all three boxes to encourage healthy eating (or in this case, sipping) because that is the cornerstone for a healthy lifestyle.
“We are what we eat,” says Tiffany. “When we eat real food that is nutrient dense and is bioavailable we absorb the nutrition in our cells and literally start to feel good, even great, and sometimes amazing.”
Learn more about Live Pure Smoothie Cubes at livepure.love. They are available on Amazon.
Just How Easy Is It? A Live Pure Smoothie How-To!
INGREDIENTS
10 cubes
1 cup of liquid
DIRECTIONS
Blend for 20 seconds
It’s that easy. As for your liquid. Live Pure recommends unsweetened vanilla almond milk or coconut milk for the best results, since many nut milks can contain a lot of sugar. “The little touch of vanilla enhances all of our smoothie cube flavors,” Tiffany says.
The team also suggests using filtered water, coconut water (especially pre- and post-workout because of naturally occurring electrolytes) or organic grass-fed milk.
“If possible buy organic plant based milks to avoid harmful pesticides,” says Tiffany. “Kroger has a line called Simple Truth Organic that we recommend.”
