THE HAIL MERRY DISPATCH — SPRING 2026
Hail Merry

Good Food. Good Mood. No Compromises.

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SCIENCE CORNER

Gums Are Everywhere. Your Gut Hates Them. We Rely on the Magic of Coconut Oil Instead.

A little love letter from us — featuring coconut oil, your microbiome, and the secret weapon hiding in mother’s milk since the dawn of time.

Let’s talk about something that lives rent-free in a lot of ingredient labels: gums and emulsifiers. You know the ones — carrageenan, xanthan gum, guar gum. And then there’s sunflower lecithin, the one that gets a free pass because it sounds so… wholesome. It shows up in chocolate bars, dairy-free ice creams, and basically anything trying to look creamier than it actually is — including plenty of products that bill themselves as “clean.”

These ingredients all do the same job: keep things smooth and stable so products don’t separate, melt weird, or embarrass themselves on the shelf. Fine for the product. Not so fine for your gut.

WHAT THE SCIENCE SAYS
A landmark 2021 study published in Microbiome (Springer Nature) tested 20 commonly used dietary emulsifiers on human gut microbiota — including gums and lecithins — and found widespread detrimental impacts on microbiota density, composition, and pro-inflammatory signaling. Carrageenans and gums showed some of the starkest effects. Research published in Foods (2022) further linked these additives to a proinflammatory gut environment that may predispose the body to metabolic syndrome and intestinal inflammatory disease.
Sources: Naimi et al., Microbiome 2021 · De Siena et al., Foods 2022

In plain English? These stabilizers don’t just pass through. They interact with your gut lining, thin the protective mucus layer that keeps bacteria where they belong, and in some cases, help the wrong things sneak through — a little situation scientists charmingly call “leaky gut.” Not exactly the vibe.

Here’s where our Cups come in. Instead of stabilizers, we use organic raw coconut oil. When our Cups are chilled, the coconut oil gently firms up the ganache filling, creating that perfectly silky, melt-in-your-mouth texture. No gums. No lecithin. No emulsifiers of any kind. Just physics doing its thing. ✨

But coconut oil isn’t just our structural hero. It’s loaded with MCTs (medium-chain triglycerides) — fast-burning fats your body converts to energy without the usual metabolic pit stop. And hiding inside all that goodness is something we find genuinely fascinating: lauric acid.

THE LAURIC ACID GLOW-UP
Lauric acid is the standout antimicrobial fatty acid in coconut oil — and here’s the plot twist: it’s also found in human breast milk, where it makes up around 10% of the fat composition. Research has shown it has potent activity against Staphylococcus aureus, Streptococcus Group A, and Candida albicans. Nature put it in mother’s milk for a reason: to help protect brand-new humans while their immune systems are still loading. We’re just borrowing the playbook.
Sources: Welsh & May 1979, as cited in Rinehart Review · Frontiers in Microbiology 2021 · Scientific Reports 2019 (Schlievert et al.)

When your body digests lauric acid, it converts it into monolaurin — an active compound that disrupts the lipid membranes of certain bacteria and viruses. Think of it as your immune system’s secret bouncer, quietly keeping the riff-raff in line. And unlike synthetic stabilizers, it’s not crashing your gut microbiome while it works.

So the next time you flip over a chocolate bar or a carton of dairy-free ice cream and spot carrageenan, xanthan gum, guar gum, or sunflower lecithin in the mix — just know there’s a cleaner way to get to delicious. Our Cups prove it every single day.

One organic coconut oil. Zero gums. Zero emulsifiers. Ganache that holds its shape. And a side of lauric acid that your immune system will quietly appreciate.

That’s what we call a win-win. (And also dessert.)

Treat Yourself. Support Your Gut.
Click here to shop our Hail Merry Cups — chilled, clean, and absurdly good.