A former walk-on turned 4-year starter for the University of California, Berkely football team and a short stint in the NFL with the Bengals and the Chiefs, Chris Manderino has taken his experience as an athlete and passion for optimizing health and human performance to a new playing field in the world of functional nutrition. After the NFL, Manderino pursued an opportunity to live abroad while playing football in Italy. Manderino was struck by the vast cultural chasm between the Italian approach to food and the American approach. Italians, even with all the pizza, pasta, downtime and copious desserts, seemed a much healthier population than the US. Manderino boiled it down to this striking difference: in Italy, food was simpler. The Italians used higher quality, mostly plant-based ingredients and had smaller portion sizes. That revelation inspired a career change, and Manderino took a job in the nutraceutical industry. He began to study dietary and training theories, and while most nutritionists and food experts disagreed on just about everything else, there was one thing everyone seemed to agree on: eating a plant-based diet is the most important thing you can do for your health. On further study, Manderino realized that plant-based diets are also critical to the future of humanity. With population growth set to explode, land and natural resources per capita are dwindling. Transitioning to a plant-based diet is better for humans, but it’s also better for the planet. Using this knowledge, Manderino co-founded LYFE Fuel. Every aspect of LYFE is backed by science, right down to the amounts of each ingredient. Instead of simply throwing random ingredients together, LYFE’s products are engineered with the specific purpose of aiding absorption, filling the most common nutritional gaps, and are rooted in the science of functional nutrition to work just as nature intended. With a vision to become a leader in personalized plant-based nutrition, LYFE takes a holistic approach to nutrition and is working to integrate emerging science and technology that put customers in control of their own health.