With women’s health historically underserved, our recent acquisition of Chiyo marks an exciting step forward. Chiyo focuses on improving women’s health through stage-specific nutrition.
We sat down with Chiyo CEO and Epicured’s new SVP of Women’s Health, Irene Liu, to discuss the powerful role nutrition plays in supporting well-being throughout a woman’s life.
Q: Why did you start Chiyo?
A: I started Chiyo not because I set out to build a women’s health company, but because I saw prenatal and postpartum nutrition as one of the most powerful levers for changing healthcare.
With a background in food systems, policy, and public health, I had spent years trying to integrate nutrition into the standard of care in for-profits, non-profits, city government — and kept running into the same wall: despite all the rhetoric, nutrition isn’t structurally embedded or meaningfully funded.
Then I watched my aunt go through pregnancy and postpartum and was stunned by how little nutritional support existed during one of the most biologically demanding periods of a woman’s life. Knowing what’s possible when maternal health is treated as infrastructure, I couldn’t ignore the gap. Chiyo became my attempt to reposition nutrition as foundational care—starting at a critical inflection point that shapes generational health, long-term outcomes, and equity.
Q: Why is nutrition overlooked when it comes to women’s health, especially around major life transitions like giving birth and menopause?
A: Nutrition is overlooked in women’s health because two underfunded areas collide: nutrition science and women’s health research. Despite diet being one of the leading modifiable risk factors for chronic disease, less than 1% of U.S. healthcare spending goes toward prevention, and physicians receive on average fewer than 20 hours of nutrition education in medical school. Nutrition is widely acknowledged as foundational—but it is not structurally integrated or reimbursed at scale.
At the same time, women’s health has historically been under-researched and underfunded. Women were not required to be included in clinical trials until the 1990s, and conditions that uniquely or disproportionately affect women—like maternal health complications, endometriosis, and menopause-related symptoms—receive disproportionately low research funding relative to their prevalence and impact. Maternal mortality in the U.S., for example, remains higher than in other high-income countries, yet investment in maternal health research lags behind the scale of the problem.
When you combine underfunded nutrition with underfunded women’s health, the result is predictable: major life transitions like pregnancy, postpartum, and menopause—biologically intense, hormonally complex windows—receive minimal structured nutritional support. We call nutrition foundational, but until funding, research, and reimbursement reflect that belief, it won’t function as standard care.
Q: What kind of services and nutrition does Chiyo offer and how do they make an impact?
A: Chiyo is the first-of-its-kind nutrition program for acute conditions in women’s health, designed for modern life. In the course of our 4, 6 to 12 week-long stage & diagnosis-specific programs, we deliver tailored ready-to-eat meals — plus personalized 1:1 coaching with our in-house RD nutritionist.
Our menu is curated by our Clinical Advisory Board for a specific stage or diagnosis with ingredients chosen for what they do, not just how they taste. Protein for tissue repair and satiety. Omega-3s for mood and brain health. Diverse plants for gut support. Warming, easy-to-digest meals when the body is healing.
We’re also measuring real, clinical outcomes. From our early research, we’ve seen the following results:
From our prenatal program:
- 93% of participants felt better physically, mentally, and emotionally after the program
- 32% average decrease in symptoms of depression and anxiety
- 27% average decrease in physical health symptoms
- 51% average decrease in a bacterial species linked to pregnancy complications (Ruminococcus gnavus)
- 91% average decrease in Clostridioides difficile, a bacteria associated with higher risk of c-section delivery
From our gestational diabetes prenatal program, within 6 weeks, participants’ average glucose ranges fell within target range - some even reaching optimal ranges.
From our postpartum program, we saw:
- 34% decrease in physical symptoms
- 31% decrease in symptoms of depression
- 22.5% decrease in feelings of stress and fatigue
Q: Who are the women in your life who inspired you to create this business?
A: It started with my aunt - seeing her go through pregnancy and postpartum during COVID made me realize how much women endure without real support, and without the time or guidance to understand what their bodies need during such a critical season. It became even more personal when I supported my sister through two pregnancies, sent meals to friends in postpartum, and sat with family navigating fertility and everything in between.
Over and over, I saw strong, capable women completely depleted, trying to take care of everyone else while having no space to take care of themselves. What struck me most was that nutrition—one of the most powerful drivers of healing, hormone balance, and recovery—was barely part of the conversation, let alone the standard of care. I started building Chiyo because this is what I wanted for myself, and ultimately it is what I hope for all of us.
Q: What advice would you give women navigating these life transitions?
A: Less judgment. Of yourself, most of all. These transitions - PMS, fertility, pregnancy, postpartum, menopause - are physically and emotionally demanding. Your energy will shift. Your needs will change.
Make it easier on yourself. Don’t try to power through everything like you always have. This is the season to simplify, to accept help, to outsource what you can, to nourish yourself in ways that actually support recovery instead of proving how much you can endure.
And trust that small steps compound. One balanced meal. One earlier bedtime. One less thing on your plate. You don’t have to overhaul your life overnight - consistent, supportive choices add up in powerful ways over time. This is what I’m always trying to tell myself too!
