Company Joins White House Challenge to End Hunger and Build Healthy Communities
EDEN PRAIRIE, MN (February 27, 2024) – Step One Foods, a cardiologist-led company dedicated to improving cardiometabolic health through nutrition, has been selected as a participant in the White House Challenge to End Hunger and Build Healthy Communities based on its commitment to helping the country’s 2 million first responders reduce their disproportionately high risk of premature, life-threatening, diet-driven disease. The company’s participation was announced in Washington today.
Step One’s commitment to the White House initiative to end hunger and reduce diet-related disease is designed to help first responders measurably improve their cardiovascular health metrics without having to adhere to onerous lifestyle changes that are difficult to sustain because of the nature of their work.
Firefighters are three times more likely to experience a cardiovascular event than those in the general workforce, while law enforcement officers experience their first heart attack nearly 20 years earlier than the general population. Reducing first responder heart disease event rates to those of the general population would not only save first responder lives, but also result in $20 billion in healthcare and lost productivity savings in just five years.
Step One’s ready-to-end snack bars and quick-prep breakfast mixes are clinically formulated with precise amounts of key nutrients known to block cholesterol absorption and reabsorption in the digestive system, actively reducing the amount of cholesterol in the bloodstream. In a randomized clinical trial conducted by Mayo Clinic and University of Manitoba, 80% of participants eating two servings of Step One Foods daily lowered their bad cholesterol in just 30 days.
The first responder program developed by Step One to support the White House Challenge includes:
- Facilitated access to Step One Foods products
- Product delivery direct to fire and police stations
- Work-site environmental review to identify opportunities to support first responders’ individual prevention efforts
- Educational materials on heart health and first responder risk
“First responders take care of us. We need to do a much better job of taking care of them,” said Elizabeth Klodas, MD FACC, founder of Step One Foods. “This commitment enables us to give back to them in the best way possible: to help them reduce their cardiovascular disease risk and enable them to keep doing the jobs they love.”
About Step One Foods
Step One Foods’ mission is to reduce diet-driven chronic disease. Proven efficacious in reducing cardiovascular risk in a randomized controlled clinical trial performed at Mayo Clinic and the University of Manitoba, Step One has already helped hundreds of thousands of individuals measurably improve their cardiovascular health while reducing reliance on prescription medications. For more information, visit https://steponefoods.com.
