1/22/2024 – Food as medicine is far from a new concept. Hippocrates, the ancient Greek who lived in the fourth century B.C., made the connection by saying, “Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.”
Today, this concept should be front-row center on our plates. There are three reasons why.
First, poor diet contributes to approximately 678,000 deaths annually in the U.S., according to a 2019-published report by the Center for Science in the Public Interest.
Second, only 10% of Americans eat enough vegetables and only 12% enough fruit, according to a 2022-published report by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention’s Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System. These deaths were due to nutrition- and obesity-related diseases, such as heart disease, cancer and diabetes.
Third, cost was the No. 1 barrier to buying fresh fruits and vegetables, according to a decade-old study cited by the CDC, and likely remains today due to rampant food inflation.
Enter a cure: produce prescriptions.
