Snack food created after cancer crisis was 'labor of love' for husband and wife
Lori Levine and her husband, Scott, created a healthy, high-protein snack and a new business. But how they got there was originally by accident — the result of a health scare and a firm commitment to make a tasty, nutritious snack that wasn't filled with processed foods.
Accountant Scott Levine was enjoying a comfortable but relatively quiet life with his wife and children in Plainview, New York, when they received news that changed everything for them.
"In 2017, out of nowhere, I got diagnosed with breast cancer," Lori Levine told Fox News Digital. (See the video at the top of this article.)
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Soon, she was having surgery and going through treatment.
"When it was done, I was feeling sorry for myself, a little out of control, and I decided I'm going to go to a nutritionist and get into the best shape of my life," she recalled. "And that's what I did."
She was 52 at the time and said a nutritionist gave her a stern message.
"She said, ‘No more [snack] bars. They have sugar. They have soy. They have preservatives. They sit on the shelf for a year. They're not good for anyone.'"
With Lori Levine missing her "grab-and-go snack," her husband decided to do something about it.
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He said he felt "helpless" while his wife was going through cancer treatment, so he was determined to help her once she was on the road to recovery.
His new food creation was just that.
"I tried all sorts of recipes," Scott told Fox News Digital. "Don't believe it when they tell you these three-ingredient brownie bars are the best thing you've ever had. Because they're not. But I ended up settling on this protein ball" — and Scott's Protein Balls were born.
He created a spreadsheet to figure out "how to size it to get it to the right calorie count and protein, etc. – and it became a favorite."
"But it was a journey," he said.
"It took time and effort. It's not exactly what I was raised to do."
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After a few months of trial and error, he was left with "this big ball."
"I didn't know how many calories it was. Then I threw it into a spreadsheet and it was eye-opening," he said of realizing it was 200 calories – double the amount that Lori requested.
Eventually, he got it down to 100 calories "and found that flavor that really worked."
"It was kind of funny because she carried [them] around with her and all our friends started to like them," Scott Levine said. "So that pushed us toward this next journey, which took a lot longer."
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As more friends and family requested the bars, they joked that the couple should start a business.
"But I'm a mom. I was recovering from breast cancer. Scott commutes three hours a day. We weren't starting a business," Lori Levine said.
Everything changed, though, when the pandemic struck in 2020. Their children, who were in their 20s, moved back home.
With nothing to do, she decided the family should make more protein balls.
"I have no idea what we're doing it for or what's happening in the world, but I ordered 50-pound bags of all kinds of different ingredients, chest freezers that are still in our kitchen and dining room today, and that's what we did," she said. "We rolled protein balls."
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The momentum began to grow, from Facebook mom groups to a local bakery, to the point that the Levines began keeping inventory and hired employees to keep up with the demand.
What started with one flavor of peanut balls grew to six – three with nuts and three without, as well as seasonal flavors.
"We're very conscious of making them healthy," Lori Levine said. "It came from a labor of love of making something good for me to eat."
Scott's Protein Balls don't contain seed oils, preservatives or food dyes, she said.
"Our products are sold exclusively in the refrigerator – and they can be kept in the refrigerator or the freezer because they're clean," she said.
And they taste good, her husband added.
"Because if it doesn't taste good, why bother, right?" he said. "Life's too short. I want to eat something that I enjoy. It fills me up and takes the edge off. And I don't want to feel guilty about it. That was the goal."
Scott's Protein Balls also donates 1% of all sales to support breast cancer research.