Let’s Make 2024 The Year Of Food is Medicine!

Danielle Nierenberg

Danielle Nierenberg 

This is the year of food is medicine.

The Food is Medicine Institute in Boston, MA, held the second annual Food is Medicine National Summit this year; the United States Department of Health and Human Services convened its first-ever summit on the topic, and Food Tank has organized discussions about food is medicine in three different states. I also just returned home from the Food as Medicine Summit in Chicago, which was filled with energizing conversations.

And this summer, Food Tank will be on Capitol Hill to continue our educational programming for policymakers and their staff on topics including food is medicine!

At its core, food is medicine is based on the simple idea that nutrition and health are linked—that what we eat has a direct relationship to how healthy we are. 

For many communities around the world, this is nothing new: Food has been used to treat and prevent diseases in various cultures for generations.

But in medical schools in the United Stares, according to the Food is Medicine Institute, less than 1 percent of lecture hours are dedicated to nutrition. 

Creating health care and food policies and programs that recognize the connections between well-being and nutrition security can be truly transformative—and save lives. 

More than 41 million people per year die from noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), according to the World Health Organization. That means a sobering 3 out of every 4 deaths globally are caused by NCDs, which include conditions like cardiovascular diseases and diabetes that are closely linked to diet quality.

We have to remember that these are structural issues, not diseases brought about exclusively by poor personal choices or a lack of education or awareness. In a world where nourishing, fresh foods can be inaccessible or unaffordable, it’s misguided and, frankly, cruel to shame people with NCDs for being unwell. 

Successful food is medicine initiatives are responsive to these on-the-ground realities. Good food is medicine interventions can take many different forms, from medically tailored meals and groceries to produce prescriptions to stronger nutrition security and food relief programs. The Food is Medicine Institute, at Tufts University, has created a FIM Pyramid to analyze a variety of population-level programs.

And as an example of how economically successful food is medicine can be, let’s look at produce prescriptions. A national produce prescription program, which would provide eligible folks with discounted or free fruits and vegetables alongside community-based nutrition education, would save about US$40 billion in health care costs every single year.

So it’s beyond time to get serious about scaling up food is medicine as a centerpiece of transforming the food system, the health care economy, and—most importantly—people’s lives.

“Food is Medicine is the first real, meaningful, major intervention that I’ve seen in my career that can actually improve health and reduce healthcare disparities,” Dariush Mozaffarian, the Director of the Food is Medicine Institute, tells Food Tank. If anyone would know, it’s him: Dr. Mozaffarian has been a cardiologist for decades and has worked tirelessly to reduce diet-related disease risk.

So let’s highlight some of the food is medicine programs leading the way toward a future where what we eat can truly nourish us.

• The Food is Medicine Institute, as I mentioned, is a collaborative effort based at Tufts University’s Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy. One of their efforts is a collaboration with Google, to understand (and critique and improve) the role of technology and artificial intelligence in providing people with nutrition information online.

• The Food is Medicine Task Force, convened by the Milken Institute’s Feeding Change program, consists of 40+ leaders from a variety of sectors who are committed to boosting the implementation of FIM initiatives. The Feeding Change program also helps connect potential FIM partners with research and financial resources.

• The Rockefeller Foundation is making substantial investments into nutrition and health, including a recent five-year, US$80 million commitment to food is medicine programs in the U.S.

• The African Heritage Diet is itself a form of medicine, healing communities by offering foods that are culturally relevant for people’s lived experiences and backgrounds. Tambra Raye Stevenson, the founder of Women Advancing Nutrition Dietetics and Agriculture (WANDA), is doing vital work lifting up these ideals. And Tamara Melton, Co-Founder of Diversify Dietetics, is working tirelessly to diversify the nutrition and dietetics field to ensure that nutritionists can provide culturally relevant nutrition information and recommendations for patients.

• The Choosing Healthy and Active Lifestyles for Kids program, a collaboration among several New York hospitals, is aimed at helping future pediatricians better understand social determinants of health so kids can understand and adopt strategies to be healthy from a young age. 

As always, I could keep going—there are so many inspiring people and organizations working on food is medicine, which is such a heartening reality. 

The main takeaway, though, is that successful food is medicine programs must be based in meaningful partnerships, building bridges across sectors and centering community expertise.

“We know that nutrition is critical to health, and if we can empower people and organizations to make optimal food choices, then we can make billions of people around the world healthier,” says Nira Goren, the Head of Health Information Quality and Food is Medicine at Google Health.

So I hope you’ll continue exploring food is medicine. A couple years ago, we highlighted 22 medical professionals who are using food to treat and prevent illness, and we’ve had several amazing conversations on the Food Talk podcast. I hope you’ll tune in to my conversation with Holly Freishtat at the Milken Institute about how we scale up FIM programs by CLICKING HERE.

What does food is medicine look like in your community? Let’s continue to assemble a global network of success stories and best practices. Loop me in at danielle@foodtank.com, and share your thoughts on how Food Tank can continue to devote our resources to making 2024 the year of food is medicine.

(Danielle Nierenberg is the President of Food Tank and can be reached at danielle@foodtank.com)