Tag Archives: Nutrition

Food as Medicine: Expanding Access and Impact with Epicured’s Rich Bennett

April 17, 2025Business, Fitness, Health, Innovation, StartupsEpicured, Food as Medicine, Health Moonshot, Health Moonshot Communities, health moonshot community, Health Transformer, Health Transformers, Logan Plaster, Nutrition, Rich Bennett, Richard BennettNicole Kinsey

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The phrase “Food as Medicine” has moved beyond buzzwords to become a powerful force in health tech and digital health. From dedicated pavilions at major conferences like HLTH to a growing understanding of its profound impact to StartUp Health’s newly-launched Food as Medicine Health Moonshot Community, the concept is clear: what we eat plays a crucial role in preventing and managing chronic diseases – often more so than medication alone. Nutrition is not just about sustenance or weight management; it’s a vital tool in fighting disease and fostering overall wellbeing.

Beyond its direct health benefits, treating food as medicine offers a unique advantage: it connects us. Sharing meals builds community and belonging, essential elements for human health and thriving that a pill simply cannot replicate.

In this episode, we speak with Rich Bennett, CEO & Co-founder of Epicured, a true standard-bearer in the Food as Medicine movement. Epicured delivers medically-tailored meals directly to individuals’ homes, offering personalized nutrition plans designed by a team of expert nutritionists and Michelin-starred chefs, catering to a range of health conditions.

We delve into Epicured’s exciting recent developments, including their groundbreaking partnership with Medicaid in New York State. This significant move expands access to their life-changing service to a wider population, particularly those who may not have had the means to benefit previously.

Bennett also shares his insights on joining as a founding member of StartUp Health’s Food as Medicine Health Moonshot Community, highlighting the collaborative efforts driving innovation and growth in this vital field.

Epicured is one of the exciting growth stories in digital health today, and they are at a fascinating inflection point. Join us as Bennett discusses their recent successful fundraise and their ambitious plans to scale up production at their “healing food” facilities. This is a pivotal moment for Epicured and the entire Food as Medicine movement. Tune in to hear how they are revolutionizing healthcare, one delicious and nutritious meal at a time.

Are you ready to tell YOUR story? Members of our Health Moonshot Communities are leading startups with breakthrough technology-driven solutions for the world’s biggest health challenges. Exposure in StartUp Health Media to our global audience of investors and partners – including our podcast, newsletters, magazine, and YouTube channel – is a benefit of our Health Moonshot Community Membership. To schedule a call and see if you qualify to join and increase brand awareness through our multi-media storytelling efforts, submit our three-minute application. If you’re mission-driven, collaborative, and ready to contribute as much as you gain, you might be the perfect fit.
» Learn more and apply today.

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Edamam CEO: Why Food as Medicine Has Hit a Market Tipping Point & Opportunities in the Space

January 31, 2025Business, Health, Innovation, StartupsEdamam, Food as Medicine, Health Moonshot, Health Moonshot Communities, Logan Plaster, Nutrition, Victor PenevNicole Kinsey

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This idea called “food as medicine” isn’t new. People have been talking for decades about how the foods we put in our body play a bigger role in preventative health and disease management than any drug or medication we could.

But it’s always been on the fringe. Partly because it’s difficult to do the studies that clinically prove that foods can be as effective as medications. And second, which is related, there hasn’t been much funding for this kind of work.

So, what’s changed? To answer that question, we sat down with Victor Penev, CEO & Founder of Edamam, a longtime member of the StartUp Health Community. Victor’s created what may be the world’s largest repository of food data. But he’s also a futurist with a keen eye on where the industry is heading.

In our conversation Penev explains how the uptake in GLP-1s and generative AI have come together in a fascinating way that opens up new opportunities in nutrition. Importantly, it may open up new funding sources and innovative business models.

On that note: StartUp Health has formally kicked off our Food as Medicine Health Moonshot Community, so if you or someone you know is a founder working in nutrition, someone with a passion to use food to make the world a healthier place, we’re accepting applications at StartUpHealth.com.

Are you ready to tell YOUR story? Members of our Health Moonshot Communities are leading startups with breakthrough technology-driven solutions for the world’s biggest health challenges. Exposure in StartUp Health Media to our global audience of investors and partners – including our podcast, newsletters, magazine, and YouTube channel – is a benefit of our Health Moonshot Community Showcase Membership. To schedule a call and see if you qualify to join and increase brand awareness through our multi-media storytelling efforts, submit our three-minute application. If you’re mission-driven, collaborative, and ready to contribute as much as you gain, you might be the perfect fit. Learn more and apply today.

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Two Startups Bringing Health Innovation to Vulnerable Communities

February 23, 2024Business, Health, Innovation, StartupsAccess to care, Diet, health equity, Logan Plaster, Nutrition, Nutrition and Fitness, T1D, T1D Moonshot, Type 1 Diabetes, Type 1 Diabetes Moonshot, Type 2 Diabetes, Underserved, Vulnerable CommunitiesNicole Kinsey

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Because of the nature of the work we do at StartUp Health, we’re often dealing with bleeding-edge ideas and technologies. Just last week on the show we talked to a founder creating what could be the smallest implantable devices on the market. Others are working on molecules that could cure diseases.

But there’s another kind of innovation that we’re equally passionate about at StartUp Health. That’s the kind of business model innovation that brings the best care and technology already available to new places and new people. There are many vulnerable communities that don’t get to benefit from the latest technical advances and it takes creative founders to bridge the gap.

Today on the podcast we’re highlighting two such founders. The first is Shruti Gurudanti, the CEO & Co-founder of Televëda – a member of the StartUp Health community since 2021. Gurudanti and her team are working with Native American veterans with the goal of lowering rates of suicide and suicidal ideation. They’ve got a tech platform that enables community building and telemedicine-style services, but what Gurudanti has found is that sometimes the most meaningful change is something basic: building trust with communities, particularly those long ignored.

After the conversation with Gurudanti we’ll hear from Kehlin Swain, CEO & Co-founder of Greens by Xplosion Technology, a member of the StartUp Health T1D Moonshot Community. Greens is an app designed to help vulnerable communities – particularly Black and Brown communities in the American South – manage diabetes in a culturally competent way. The app is called “Greens” in honor of one of the biggest cultural disconnects a family member faced as he navigated changing his diet after a diabetes diagnosis.

The common thread between Gurudanti and Swain is using the best tech of today to meet people where they are and to really understand what’s holding them back. Sometimes it’s something basic, like improving internet access or tech literacy, or bringing basic accountability to disease management.

Let’s get into the interviews, recorded live at a recent health tech conference.

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No More Suffering in Silence: Meet Two Founders Tackling Gut Health

December 15, 2023Business, Health, Innovation, Startups, Uncategorizedartificial intelligence, BetterMeal AI, Diet, Foursquare, Gut Health, Health Moonshot, Health Moonshots, Health Transformer, Health Transformers, Innovation, Jeff Glueck, Logan Plaster, Nutrition, Nutrition & Fitness, Nutrition and Fitness, Salvo, Salvo Health, Swathi Arulguppe, Whole HealthNicole Kinsey

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On this week’s StartUp Health NOW episode, we’re talking about the future of gut health with Jeff Glueck, CEO & Co-founder of Salvo Health, and Swathi Arulguppe, CEO & Founder at BetterMeal AI.

There’s no doubt gut health is having a moment.

For a long time, health issues in the gut, like irritable bowel syndrome and Crohn’s disease, were met with outdated pamphlets about diets. The result was millions of people suffering in silence with painful, life-limiting conditions.

It’s not that GI doctors didn’t want to help. There just didn’t seem to be a lot that they could do.

Thankfully our understanding of the importance of gut health – and its connection to mental health and whole health – has resulted in a wave of innovation. And on this podcast episode, we’ll talk to some amazing entrepreneurs working to break this cycle and bring relief to patients.

Our first guest, Jeff Glueck was the CEO of Foursquare before he co-founded Salvo Health. He’s taking on gut health from two innovative angles.

The first is through the establishment of a digital clinic which makes specialty GI care available to patients at scale and on demand. Second, Glueck and his team are capitalizing on the latest research connecting gut health to mental health and other conditions. This connection between the gut microbiome and whole health is just exploding and Salvo is helping patients stay on the cutting edge.

Then we’ll check in with Swathi Arulguppe, CEO & Founder of BetterMeal AI.

You’ll hear how Arulguppe has taken her own journey with a debilitating GI condition, combined it with her passion for data, and built a platform for helping deliver AI-driven personalized meal recommendations to patients. By understanding the biological connections between human gut and food at the deepest level, she has built an app that helps guide its users on how to best manage their gut health through their nutrition.

Let’s jump in and find out where we are in gut health innovation.

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Food as Medicine: The Next Wave of Tech-Enabled Nutrition

November 16, 2023Business, Health, Innovation, StartupsEdamam, Food as Medicine, Health Moonshot, Health Moonshots, Health Transformer, Health Transformers, Logan Plaster, Nutrition, Nutrition & Fitness, Nutrition and Fitness, Shireen Abdullah, Victor Penev, YumlishNicole Kinsey

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At StartUp Health we’re all about what’s new and what’s next in health, and that often means talking about cutting-edge technology. But sometimes the most radical way to improve is also the simplest. One example? Our food.

This week, as we head into Thanksgiving in the United States, we’re talking about the role food plays in managing not just our weight and fitness, but actual chronic diseases. Some people use the term ‘Food as Medicine,’ and the more research we do, the more ways we find that tuning our nutrition can sometimes be superior to taking more pharmaceuticals.

While the idea of seeing food as a legitimate healthcare tool isn’t new, per se, there are some exciting new tools and platforms that leverage nutritional information and make it more accessible to the world. And that’s what we’re going to talk about on this episode.

Our first guest is Shireen Abdullah, CEO & Founder at Yumlish, who joined the StartUp Health community in 2019. Shireen’s platform puts a virtual nutritionist in your pocket, with a strong emphasis on boosting health literacy. She’s also worked very closely with the Air Force on workforce readiness. Turns out there are so many young people who are overweight and inactive that it’s hindering military recruitment and becoming a national security threat.

After Shireen we’ll hear from Victor Penev, CEO & Founder of Edamam, a Health Transformer since all the way back in 2013. Victor has made the world’s food knowledge more searchable through Edamam’s API so that users of platforms like NOOM and Virta Health can get personalized meal recommendations. We’ll also hear about their brand new integration with Open AI that brings a ChatGPT experience to the process of finding personalized meal plans.

Enjoy the episode!

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How Health Tech Startups Can Launch with Government Contracts

June 9, 2023Business, Health, Innovation, StartupsAccess to care, Digital Health, health innovation, Health Moonshot, Health Moonshots, Health Tech, Health Transformer, Health Transformers, Innovation, Logan Plaster, Nutrition, Nutrition and Fitness, Shireen Abdullah, Suzy Shirley, VA, Veteran Affairs, Veterans Health Administration, VHA, YumlishNicole Kinsey

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So you’re healthcare founder who has designed and built, by the sweat of your brow, a new platform or product that can help people live longer, healthier lives. Now, you just need to get it into people’s hands so they can use it, give feedback, help you iterate, and ultimately scale. As every founder knows, building the product is just a first step. Getting to market is a whole other challenge.

There are lots of different approaches for go-to-market strategy – with StartUp Health’s community of nearly 500 companies we’ve seen them all. One we wanted to highlight today is the idea of pursuing partnerships with the government or military. Given the enormous number of people that fall within the care of the military and federal agencies and the funding that gets allocated for their health, this is a tempting strategy. But it’s not for the faint of heart or those short on runway.

In this week’s podcast episode we’ll talk to two people who are making this marriage of startups and government contracts work – from two different angles.

First we’ll hear from Shireen Abdullah, CEO & Founder of Yumlish (which joined StartUp Health in 2019), about how she’s working with the US Air Force to help keep recruits healthy and service ready. Turns out, poor nutrition could actually become a national security threat.

Second, we’ll hear from the other side of the table. Suzy Shirley heads up community engagement at the VA’s Pathfinder program. Pathfinder was established just recently with the express purpose of making it easier for startups to access the Veterans Health Administration, which, if you’re not familiar, is massive. The VHA is the largest integrated healthcare system in the United States, providing care at more than 1200 facilities, covering over nine million enrolled veterans. Many healthcare startups would love to work with this patient population, but traditionally the administrative barriers have been high. Suzy Shirley explains how her team is changing the paradigm. She provides some practical tips for how runway-limited startups can make meaningful headway with such a huge government institution and start piloting high-impact products.

Enjoy the episode, which was recorded at the ViVE 2023 conference in Nashville.

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