Food as medicine

Chicken soup to treat a cold, ginger for nausea, tea with honey for a sore throat, a mustard poultice for muscle pain – these foods and more have been used to treat ailments for millenia. While these home remedies vary in their ability to cure illness, scientists have discovered compounds in foods that can have therapeutic effects. For certain conditions, diet alone can make a tremendous impact on an individual’s health and physicians are increasingly prescribing specific foods and diets for their patients. As Food and Wine reports, not only can this improve health, food as medicine can be an economic engine.

If the idea of food as medicine sounds a little ‘woo-woo’, there is a growing body of scientific evidence to back it up. A 2025 analysis conducted at Tufts University “found that if every U.S. state provided medically tailored meals to people with diet-sensitive conditions, the country could save about $32.1 billion in net healthcare costs in the first year alone.” While that is a small amount in overall US healthcare spending, it could pay larger dividends down the road. Conditions like Type 2 diabetes, for example, are better managed with a combination of a healthy diet and medicine than by medicine alone. For some patients, having a prescription may make it easier for them to procure healthy foods.

In addition to benefitting patients, a ‘Food is Medicine’ program can boost local economies. If the diet prescribed by a physician is locally sourced, the money spent will stay in the community, boosting employment in a sector that is struggling. Direct to consumer agriculture isn’t new – think farmers markets and CSAs – but this provides an entirely new conduit to connect small farms with people in the community. It can also help push growers to consider a wider variety of crops.