"Mount Sinai Sees Appetite for Dietitian-Designed Meal Services" -Melanie Grayce West

For people suffering from serious digestive diseases, a simple meal can sometimes have debilitating physical effects. To help these patients, Mount Sinai Health System is boosting an investment in a food company that aims to make eating easier. The investment by Mount Sinai’s venture fund, the third in two years, is for Epicured, a two-year-old New York-based company that provides fully prepared, dietitian-designed fresh meals for about 1,000 customers. Officials for Mount Sinai say the further investment comes as more people look to food as an integral part of medical treatment and as health care shifts more to outpatient care delivery. Epicured’s menu is based around a diet low in the kinds of foods that have been medically shown to aggravate the gut, cause inflammation or other intestinal symptoms. Mount Sinai’s gastroenterology program is one of the largest in the country. Part of the decision to partner with the company, officials said, was to provide a tasty product to patients who may be confused or overwhelmed when having to adapt to a new and sometimes restrictive diet. Patients with irritable bowel syndrome or Crohn’s disease, for example, sometimes don’t even feel well enough to cook, said Laura Manning, a registered dietitian with Mount Sinai. Epicured will soon be sold in Mount Sinai commissaries and the company is eyeing expansion with different therapeutic menus for people with heart disease or end-stage renal disease.

— Brent Stackhouse, Vice President, Mount Sinai Ventures
— Laura Manning, Registered Dietician