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"My journey of showing people
how to eat better (and enjoy it) has helped me to understand that spotlighting what drives others to produce great products… sharing their insights and talents… is a gift to self." ~ Laura Pensiero |
ARCHIVED COLUMNS:
May 2025 "Let's Get Personal...with Nutrition" March 2025 "Unpacking Food Processing: What's Really on Your Plate?" October 2024 "The Multifaceted Pumpkin" August 2024 "Easy, Relaxed Cooking During Those Lazy-Hazy-Crazy Days of Summer" May 2024 "Spring: A Time for Optimism, Fresh Flavors, and a Healthy Reset" March 2024 "The Mediterranean Diet" |
Food Is Medicine: A Journey from Common Sense to Cutting Edge
November 2025
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We are finally witnessing the convergence of culinary wisdom and medical science — proof that Food Is Delicious Medicine, a potent, personalized therapy that heals body, mind and spirit.
A recent Harvard analysis estimates that $50 billion a year in U.S. healthcare costs stem directly from poor diets, particularly from diet-related diseases, such as heart disease, stroke, and type 2 diabetes. Globally, the economic toll of dietary risks between 2020 and 2050 could exceed $15 trillion, reflecting preventable hospitalizations, lost productivity, and lives cut short by the way we eat. These staggering numbers tell a story we’ve long known intuitively: what we put on our plates shapes not only our health but also the wellbeing of our communities and economies. When I began my career in dietetics more than thirty years ago, the conversation around nutrition was very different. We spoke in numbers — grams, milligrams and percentages — always tallying what to limit or avoid. It was a time of guidelines and restrictions: less fat, fewer calories, reduced sodium. Food was discussed clinically, not lovingly. We prescribed diets, not meals, and we thought of eating as a behavior to manage rather than a daily opportunity for nourishment and joy. |
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Today, that’s changing — finally. Food Is Medicine is no longer a fringe idea whispered in wellness circles; it’s taking root at the highest levels of health policy, research, and practice. And while I celebrate this progress, I can’t help but feel we’re returning to something that should never have been lost.
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As a chef, registered dietitian, and someone who has built a life around food — at the table, in the clinic, and in the community — I’ve watched the long, sometimes frustrating evolution of how we understand food’s role in health. From the macronutrient counting of my early career to today’s era of precision nutrition, we’re finally merging common sense with cutting-edge science.
Looking back, it’s remarkable how far we’ve traveled — and how many detours we took along the way. In the 1970s, convenience became king. Frozen dinners and boxed meals promised modern efficiency but slowly distanced us from whole foods and home cooking. The “low-fat” revolution that followed was well-intentioned but misguided, stripping away healthy fats while adding sugar and refined carbohydrates. We demonized eggs, butter and avocados while quietly fueling a new epidemic of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease. Now, we’re finding our way back to the beginning. The renewed interest in Food Is Medicine isn’t about discovering something new — it’s about remembering what generations before us already knew. Food can prevent, manage, and even help heal disease. We’re rediscovering the therapeutic power of ingredients and the wisdom of traditional eating patterns — whether Mediterranean, Asian, or Indigenous — and pairing them with modern insights from genetics, microbiome research, and technology to make nutrition more personal and precise. |
Image Credit: Laura Pensiero (AI Generated)
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"Programs like medically tailored meals, grocery prescriptions, and nutrition counseling are beginning to connect the dots between what we eat and how we heal. For me, it feels less like a revolution and more like a long-overdue homecoming." ~ L. P. |
Programs like medically tailored meals, grocery prescriptions, and nutrition counseling are beginning to connect the dots between what we eat and how we heal. For me, it feels less like a revolution and more like a long-overdue homecoming.
When I started out in hospitals and clinics, my days revolved around therapeutic diets — those medically necessary meal plans designed for acute illness or recovery. They served a purpose, of course, but once patients were discharged, nutrition advice often shifted to the purely numerical: calorie or carbohydrate counts, sodium limits, grams of fat. The guidance was clinical and abstract, disconnected from the realities of shopping, cooking and eating. I couldn’t shake the sense that something was missing — the link between nourishment and pleasure, between food as prescription and food as experience. That realization led me to the French Culinary Institute, where I immersed myself in the language of flavor, texture and technique. A year in Italy soon followed, where I learned what balance truly means: that food is about community, freshness, joy and moderation — not deprivation. That realization — that food could be both healing and joyful — became the foundation of what I now call Food Is Delicious Medicine.
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Leaving acute care marked a turning point. I began focusing on prevention — helping people stay well rather than just treating illness after it appeared. That passion eventually led me to collaborate on the Strang Cancer Prevention Center Cookbook, during a thrilling time when science was just beginning to explore the power of phytochemicals — those natural plant compounds beyond vitamins and minerals that showed promise for cancer prevention and chronic disease management.
Around that same period, the Memorial Sloan Kettering Rockefeller Outpatient Pavilion at 160 East 53rd Street in New York City had the foresight to include a demonstration kitchen when it opened in 1999. The goal was visionary: to educate cancer patients, survivors and families about how food could play a role in their journey — an early “food is medicine” concept brought to life. As the culinary coordinator and nutritionist for that program, I designed classes that translated complex nutrition science into accessible, delicious meals. It remains one of my favorite chapters in healthcare — a time when I saw firsthand how education, empowerment and nourishment could unite around the table, bridging the gap between knowing what to do and having the tools to make it happen. In those days, our understanding of nutrition was shifting quickly. We began looking beyond calories and macronutrients to the orchestra of compounds within whole foods — antioxidants, flavonoids, carotenoids, and hundreds of others — working synergistically to protect and restore health. It was an early glimpse of what we now call the Food Is Medicine movement: food not simply as sustenance but as therapy, connection and care. |
Laura Teaching a Class: Culinary Demonstration Kitchen at Memorial Sloan Kettering
Photo Courtesy: Laura Pensiero |
Two decades later, that early vision has blossomed. Advances in epigenetics, microbiome science, and precision nutrition have deepened our understanding of how food interacts with our biology. We now know that what we eat can influence which genes are switched on or off, how our immune system responds, and how our gut microbes shape everything from mood to metabolism. The best medicine, it turns out, really does start in the kitchen.
So why now — after decades of knowing but not doing — has Food Is Medicine finally captured national attention?
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"As people seek food that reflects their values and fuels their well-being, they’re reshaping the food industry from the ground up. The old silos between “healthcare” and “food” are crumbling, replaced by shared goals of prevention, sustainability and wellness." ~ L.P. |
Part of the answer is science. We’ve reached a point where data backs what tradition has always known: that food can prevent disease and improve quality of life. But culture has shifted, too. The pandemic was an inflection point, exposing how diet-related diseases amplify vulnerability. People with obesity, diabetes and hypertension — conditions largely preventable through nutrition — were hit hardest by COVID-19. Food insecurity became a public health emergency, and the relationship between diet, immunity and resilience could no longer be ignored.
At the same time, consumers began demanding more — better quality food, greater transparency, and real integrity in sourcing. People want to know where their food comes from, how it’s grown, and whether it supports both personal and planetary health. The movement is increasingly consumer-driven rather than regulatory, and that’s a good thing. As people seek food that reflects their values and fuels their well-being, they’re reshaping the food industry from the ground up. The old silos between “healthcare” and “food” are crumbling, replaced by shared goals of prevention, sustainability and wellness. |
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This awakening is taking root in policy, too.
At the federal level, agencies like HHS and CMS have launched a cross-agency Food Is Medicine Initiative to map existing programs and establish national standards. Congress is weighing the National Food as Medicine Program Act and provisions in the Farm Bill that could permanently fund produce prescriptions and medically tailored meals. Several states are already leading the way. Massachusetts funds medically tailored meals through its Medicaid program. North Carolina’s Healthy Opportunities pilot reimburses produce prescriptions. Oklahoma authorizes Medicaid support for nutrition interventions, while California and Texas are expanding similar models. Together with national programs like Kaiser Permanente’s Produce Rx and the USDA’s GusNIP grants, these initiatives represent a quiet but profound transformation: doctors prescribing food the way they once prescribed medication. |
"And the private sector is paying attention. Insurers and employers are introducing grocery credits, meal delivery benefits, and culinary wellness education. Prevention, once considered a moral argument, is finally proving to be an economic one too." ~ L.P. |
And the private sector is paying attention. Insurers and employers are introducing grocery credits, meal delivery benefits, and culinary wellness education. Prevention, once considered a moral argument, is finally proving to be an economic one too.
Laura Pensiero, Chef, Restaurateur, Nutritionist
Photo Courtesy: Laura Pensiero |
Of course, progress brings challenges. Reimbursement pathways, data systems, and evaluation standards must evolve to make these programs sustainable. But these are growing pains, not reasons to pause. What gives me hope is how public and private sectors — along with chefs, clinicians, and community leaders — are beginning to work in harmony. Food is moving from the periphery of healthcare to its center, from a social good to a clinical tool.
As a chef, I believe we also need culinary accountability alongside clinical accountability. If we expect food to heal, it must honor the person eating it. That means measuring more than sodium or fat content — it means valuing flavor, dignity, and cultural relevance as outcomes just as important as blood pressure or A1C. That’s the essence of Food Is Delicious Medicine: when food delights the senses, it sustains the soul — and that’s where healing begins. And the evidence supporting these efforts is growing rapidly. In Boston, a Health Affairs study found that patients receiving medically-tailored meals had about half as many hospitalizations and significant reductions in healthcare costs compared to similar patients who didn’t receive them. Another JAMA Internal Medicine analysis across Massachusetts found fewer inpatient and skilled nursing admissions and lower total spending for those enrolled in food-based interventions. |
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Produce prescription programs show similar results: greater fruit and vegetable intake, improved food security, and measurable improvements in blood pressure and blood sugar among participants with chronic conditions. National evaluations of the USDA’s GusNIP initiatives show participants adding roughly one extra cup of produce per day — small shifts that add up to significant health gains.
Economically, the potential is staggering. Modeling suggests that providing medically-tailored meals to even a fraction of adults with diet-sensitive conditions could save billions annually by preventing hospital stays and complications. None of this replaces medicine — it complements it. Food doesn’t compete with clinical care; it strengthens it. We’ve come full circle. What was once common sense — that food can nourish, restore and connect us — is now being confirmed by data and embraced in policy. But momentum alone won’t make Food Is Medicine the norm. It will take deliberate action. Clinicians must integrate nutrition screening and food referrals into everyday care. Policymakers need to secure funding and streamline reimbursement for food-based interventions. Health systems should partner with chefs, farmers, and food service providers to ensure quality and accessibility. Businesses and insurers must recognize that healthy employees are productive ones, and investing in food benefits pays dividends. And culinary professionals must continue upholding ingredient integrity and cultural respect as pillars of public health. Technology will accelerate progress — from genetic testing and microbiome mapping to AI-driven nutrition tools — but the real transformation will remain human. It’s in the cook who chooses local ingredients, the clinician who prescribes a produce box, the policymaker who writes nutrition into Medicaid, and the family that gathers around a simple, nourishing meal. From hospital wards to restaurant kitchens, from the science of nutrients to the soul of cooking, I’ve learned one unshakable truth: Food Is Delicious Medicine. It’s memory, connection and care — and when we align our systems with that understanding, we heal more than bodies. We heal communities. |
10 Tips to Embark on Your Food Is Medicine Journey
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Laura Pensiero is Sanctuary's nutrition columnist and the founder, chef/owner and creative force behind Gigi Hudson Valley (Gigi Trattoria and Gigi Catering). She is the author of Hudson Valley Mediterranean and co-author of The Strang Cancer Prevention Center Cookbook. Find out more about Laura by reading her interview with Sanctuary HERE. Visit her on LinkedIn.
