Published: May 31, 2024
Food-as-medicine company, bitewell, leads the way in personalized nutrition by helping consumers understand the role of food in healthcare
An apple a day keeps the doctor away. At least that’s what mothers have been telling their children to get them to consume more fruit and vegetables since this aphorism first appeared in 1866.
And the mothers of the world aren’t wrong. A diet of whole, minimally processed foods has been linked time and time again with longer lifespan, longer health span, and a reduced risk for chronic disease.
So, how have we gotten to a place where 33% of adults globally are suffering from multiple chronic diet-related diseases? Diseases that cause 17,000,000 deaths per year in people under 70 and, according to the World Economic Forum, could cost $47 trillion annually by 2030.
The answer is both simple and horrendously complex. At a headline level, we’ve stopped thinking about food as a foundational pillar of health.
As one of the companies leading the recent “food as medicine” movement, bitewell is here to change that. Led by two founders who have personal experience with food’s profound impact on the body, the company is on a mission to improve the world’s health through food.
“I’ve seen firsthand the impact eating the right food (and the wrong food) has on my own body. I wanted to help others find the best foods for them without needing a masters in nutrition,” explained Samantha Citro-Alexander, CEO & Co-Founder of bitewell. “We’re creating best-in-class tools and working with incredible partners to make food as medicine accessible, actionable and affordable.”
So how does bitewell make eating healthfully accessible, actionable and affordable? It all starts with a unifying metric – the bitewell FoodHealth Score (or FHS, for short). The FHS is a single metric, on a 0-10 scale, that helps people understand what foods best match their bodies’ unique health conditions, dietary needs & health goals. Whole, nutrient-dense foods tend to score higher on the scale (7-10), while highly processed, nutrient-deficient foods tend to score lower on the scale.
“Education is just the first step,” says Citro-Alexander, “In some ways, that’s the easy part. The harder part is translating that education into action in a way that is accessible and affordable for every American.”
The FHS is the cornerstone metric for their digital health product – the bitewell food farmacy. The bitewell food farmacy is an online, results-oriented food store that personalizes each person’s shopping experience to their health needs, goals and preferences. bitewell’s food farmacy members get access to preferred pricing, healthy eating rewards, and other perks to make nutrient-rich food more affordable for everyone.
“bitewell is a three-and-a-half-year-old company, and we’re just scratching the surface of what our technology can do to improve the health and lives of the people we serve,” said Citro Alexander.
