What if you didn’t have to choose between great flavour and a healthy belly?
For years I cooked the way I’d always cooked — garlic in everything, onion in the foundation of every sauce, the assumption that good food required them both.
I was wrong. Not about how good they taste. About what they were doing to me.
It took years to figure out, longer to accept. IBS doesn’t announce itself politely. It edits your life one meal at a time — until cooking becomes calculation, eating becomes anxiety, and the kitchen stops being a place of joy.
I went looking for spice blends that would let me cook the food I loved without the consequences. What I found was disappointing.
The blends marked “low FODMAP” were bland. The “clean” brands hid behind the word spices — a single ingredient that could legally include garlic or onion, so there was no way to know whether a blend contained even traces of either. Premium brands relied on garlic-infused oils or natural garlic flavouring, which is exactly the same problem in a different bottle.
I started making my own. Carrot powder for sweetness instead of onion. Sumac and citrus for brightness. Aleppo pepper for warmth that builds slowly. Smoked paprika and amchur for depth. Hours at the kitchen counter, working out blends that delivered on flavour without the gut consequences.
carrot powder, not onion — same sweetness, without the fructans
The food started tasting like food again. My family ate it without knowing it was “the special version.” Friends asked for the recipes. Eventually I stopped explaining and started bottling.
That’s how stellaVie began — not as a wellness brand, not as a medical solution, but as a kitchen. A place where complexity of flavour and care for the body are the same project, not different ones.
Every blend is named, every ingredient listed, nothing hidden behind catch-all words. Every blend is garlic-free and onion-free, and one is nightshade-free. All are honest about what they contain and what they don’t.
every ingredient named, always — never just “spices”
The platform we built it on is called laVie — short for la vie, the French phrase for life. Where c’est la vie implies resignation, laVie is the opposite. It’s an invitation. To food, to flavour, to the life you actually wanted before your gut got in the way.
Welcome.
— Candace, Founder
About stellaVie
Headquartered in Zürich, Switzerland. Founded by Candace, who knows what it’s like to love food and need to be careful with it. Every blend is garlic-free and onion-free, every ingredient is named individually, and allergens are declared on the label. No “spices” as a catch-all ingredient. No natural garlic flavourings. No garlic-infused oils. Just real ingredients, named individually, blended thoughtfully.
write to candace