I Was Diagnosed With Colitis at 13. It Changed Everything I Put in My Mouth.

When I was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis at 13, food stopped being something I could ignore.

I started reading labels earlier than most people ever do. I learned to separate food that actually nourishes you from food that just fills you up. And I noticed something that still bothers me: almost nothing in a normal pantry was built to do both.

Pasta sauce was the worst offender. Seed oils, added sugar, about 2g of protein per serving. It was the base of half the dinners in America, and it did nothing for anyone.

Sam and I grew up as best friends. He was the high school athlete who tried every protein product out there, and hated most of them. Chalky shakes. Rubbery bars. Ingredient lists he couldn’t pronounce.

When we got to Tulane, we brought both problems into the same room and asked a question nobody seemed to have answered: why can’t the foods people already love just have the nutrition built in?

Not as an afterthought. Not as a powder you stir in. As something you’d never know was there.

The protein industry wants you to believe protein has to come from a shaker bottle or a wrapper. Meanwhile, the jar of marinara in your cupboard is quietly working against you.

Most jarred sauces are built for shelf life and price, not for you. Refined seed oils. Added sugar. Barely any protein. You eat it every week and it never pulls its weight.

We didn’t want another supplement. We wanted dinner to do more.

Working with food scientists, we developed a proprietary blend of three proteins that disappears into a slow-cooked marinara. That’s Forté Protein Marinara.

✓ 17g protein per ½ cup: whey protein isolate, hydrolyzed collagen and beef bone broth. 100g in every jar.

✓ Extra virgin olive oil only: no canola, sunflower or soybean oil, ever.

✓ 0g added sugar: a touch of monk fruit balances the acidity, the way a pinch of sugar would.

✓ Third-party tested for heavy metals, with COAs available on request.

✓ Small-batch, made in the USA.

Because it doesn’t ask you to change anything. You’re making pasta anyway. Pizza night, shakshuka, chicken parm: pour Forté instead of your usual jar and dinner does the work.

✓ It tastes like marinara, not like a protein product. That was the whole point.

✓ Kids eat it. No negotiating at the dinner table.

✓ It costs less per serving than a protein bar: from $2.41 a serving, and it comes with a real meal.

✓ Pasta night carries 17g of protein per half cup, before you add anything else.

✓ You hit your protein without planning your whole day around it.

✓ A label you can read in ten seconds, and trust.

✓ One sauce, every weeknight: pasta, pizza, eggs, chicken, veggies.