The Step One Foods difference: Part two

Editor's note: Step One Foods was founded by Cardiologist Elizabeth Klodas to create a healthy, convenient and delicious daily food product that can improve your health. You can read about our clinically proven results in lowering cholesterol, or shop our products to try them yourself. If you’re not satisfied, we’ll give you your money back.

By Dr. Elizabeth Klodas

In last week’s blog, we discussed what makes Step One Foods® products different from other foods in the marketplace - and highlighted the way our ingredients work together to deliver the nutrients your body needs to help lower cholesterol and improve overall heart health.

This week I wanted to tell you why these foods were created in the first place.

So I’ve been in cardiology practice for 20 years.  And for the first 10, I diligently put people on medications – because that’s what I was taught to do.  For the last 10, I’ve been diligently trying to get people off of medications – because that’s the right thing to do.

My epiphany came when I looked around my waiting room and realized I wasn’t curing anyone.  By every metric I was a great doctor – after all, I had put all my patients on the perfect combination of drugs to get their “numbers” to goal.  But what I realized was that none of the people I was caring for looked better or felt good.  In fact, many were telling me that the medications they were taking actually made them feel worse.

So I started asking patients what they ate. And that’s when it hit me. I was treating the wrong thing!  Instead of addressing WHY a patient’s cholesterol was high in the first place, I was merely treating the downstream effects of poor diet. 

No wonder my patients were still sick. They were sick from the side effects of the statin medications I had put them on - and from not fueling their bodies with the proper nutrients they needed to live a healthy life.

And when I got patients to change their diets, amazing things happened.  Medications lists shrank.  Diagnoses melted away.  My patients looked and felt better.  In fact, they didn’t need me anymore!  Which is the point. I went to medical school to cure people - not to create a revolving door of never ending follow-up visits.

The problem was that the number of people who could make the dietary changes needed to achieve this was tiny.  Because it requires cooking from scratch and being meticulous about choosing ingredients.  So I still had a lot of patients that needed help changing diet but who just couldn’t do it completely on their own. And that’s what prompted me to develop Step One Foods®.

At Step One Foods®, we recognize that getting enough whole food fiber, omega-3 fatty acids, antioxidants and plant sterols from food can be challenging – so we’ve made it easy.  And the best part is that this isn’t some chalky powder or weird supplement – it’s simple and delicious food that requires no to minimal preparation.

But just because it’s delicious and simple to prepare, doesn’t mean it’s like any other food on the market. Step One Foods® is a targeted nutrition intervention that can yield measurable health benefits. It's food as medicine.

Food that is nutritious and healthy truly is the best medicine for your body. And by incorporating two Step One Foods® products into your diet each day you can attain cholesterol lowering benefits that rival those of medications. Plus, there are no side effects – just side benefits like lower blood pressure, better blood sugar control and weight loss – all of which can help decrease heart-disease risk.

If someone had told me when I was in medical school that someday I would start a food company, I would have said they were crazy.  And yet, here I am.  I truly believe in the power of food as medicine and that heart disease is preventable – by how we nourish our bodies. Step One Foods® is here to help you live a heart healthy life, the simple way.

Stay tuned for our blog next week to hear more about the successes many people have achieved since incorporating Step One Foods into their diets.

Elizabeth Klodas MD, FACC