Food is Medicine: From Concept to World Campaign

Credits: “Food is Medicine” Impact Stories by UMass Amherst

“Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food,” the Father of Medicine, Hippocrates, is claimed to have once said. Surprisingly, there has been no direct evidence of Hippocrates ever having made this statement! Even with many interpretations of this quote, it became the basis for and popularity of a glowingly relevant topic in medicine and public health: “Food Is Medicine.” The mitigating power dietary changes have on improving chronic disease conditions and its preventative power to ensure these conditions don’t reach everyone has been evident in research and medical recommendations for years. Now, starting in 2024, with greater political interest in being involved in national health, the United States has started a “Food is Medicine” or “Food as Medicine” campaign. Ironically, the healing properties of food has been long integrated into cultures around the world, except in the US. Now the US is taking a step towards bringing “Food is Medicine” to the global policy level.

Cultural Origins

The concept of Food is Medicine, though not historically embedded into global health policy, has often been provided through dietary recommendations in different countries. In ancient traditional Chinese medicine, food therapy was used to ensure balanced health through dietary standardization. For example, the fermentation of red yeast rice was prescribed to increase blood circulation in traditional Chinese medicine, with modern-day research finding the rice’s cholesterol-lowering properties. Another example is the use of long pepper in many Asian countries such as Indonesia for anti-inflammatory properties, India through Ayurvedic medicine to remove intestinal gases; modern studies have indeed found its properties in boosting immune systems and preventing chronic diseases such as diabetes. While these are a few of the extensive examples of the properties of food being used to treat or prevent chronic disease or even acute conditions, this shows the healing power of food and how the movement began way before its official recognition. 

Original Movement

Fast-forwarding to the 1980s, the movement truly uprooted in response to the HIV/AIDs epidemic, with widespread malnourishment as being the primary agent of the high numbers of deaths. Thus, the Ryan White CARE Act of 1990 was passed to provide medically-tailored meals to patients experiencing debilitating symptoms to improve their health. Registered Dietitians (RDs) got on board to help create and distribute these medically tailored meals (MTMs), along with educating them through nutrition education programs, and a recent study replicated this effort, deeming this movement highly effective! This led to the formation and consolidation of various organizations pushing for the movement in other  areas, leading to the formation of the Food Is Medicine Coalition in 2010. 

Recent Movement Expansion in the US and Beyond

A revitalization of the Food is Medicine movement took place in 2022, when the Biden administration, via the Hunger, Nutrition, and Health Conference, called to action the need to reform the national state of chronic disease by 2030. This led to the formation of the “Make America Healthy Again” movement in 2025, focused on by the Department of Human Health Services, partnered with the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to synthesize health food guidelines (known as the ‘Dietary Guidelines for Americans’).

Running back, the extension of the Farm Bill from 2018 through November 2023 allowed for the funding of programs such as the Gus Schumaker Nutrition Intervention program (GusNIP), one of many Food is Medicine initiative programs Centers for Medicare and Medicare Services updated guidance policy in 2024, expanding access to healthcare access services (e.g. federal benefit programs) and more importantly, food access related services such as food pharmacies, protein boxes, and much more specifically for adults and kids.

In 2025, Section 1115 provides waivers in Medicaid and Medicare to expand access to many of these and other healthcare resources, specifically expanding access to nutritional resources. More recently, we are seeing greater US-wide governor involvement in this movement, with many governors in states passing supportive legislation. In fact 16 states’ governors pushed for the very waivers expanding nutritional access through Medicaid and Medicare. Governor Tina Kotek became heavily involved with the five-year waiver through public health interventions by supporting medically tailored meals, Food is Medicine’s primary approach. Former North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper expanded research testing the effectiveness of these services via North Carolina’s Healthy Opportunity Pilots. 

Even with all the efforts made to widen this public health campaign nationwide, despite other countries having Food is Medicine rooted into their culture, the US wanted to take a global health policy step to make this official. One of the first steps taken is by the Rockefeller Center, who took the global state of chronic disease caused by poor diet management as a call to action. With research being underdeveloped in this area, the Rockefeller Center held a conference in September 2025 bringing together physicians, policy makers, and other stakeholders in the blossoming field to discuss solutions and officially draft the first Global Food is Medicine (FIM) Principles on intervention implementation in healthcare.

Future Vision?

Now with the state of US funding cuts impacting much of the research efforts on a national and global scale, along with the field being so new and not much research being done or there being many few experts in the field, there is a level of uncertainty regarding the future of Food is Medicine. Additionally, addressing the issue of food access (with there being many communities lacking access to these insurance programs, being undocumented residents or living in food deserts) would be necessary to further expand this movement. However, with the hope that the current political administration is willing to utilize different, yet seemingly effective guidelines on the program, the future of this movement is bright.