Let thy food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.’ – Hippocrates

In a world where medication non-adherence is one of the biggest contributors to poor health outcomes, we’ve talked and written about how “food is medicine that we take three times a day”.

Food has many properties that you’d wish of medicine – safety (as long as handled, prepared, and stored appropriately), efficacy (a diet of healthy foods is correlated with good health outcomes), and compliance (we all have to eat!) – and is increasingly recognized as a key social determinant of health. But a regimen of multiple healthy meals a day remains a luxury to many Americans, and it continues to be the case that 20% of deaths in the U.S. are attributable to dietary risks, even more than tobacco use.

Against this backdrop, the last decade has seen a surge of healthcare programs focused on metabolic health, whether in the form of coaching for diabetes management, wellness apps for weight loss, or value-based care models for chronic diseases. While these programs may address nutrition through content and coaching, they generally don’t address the actual attainment of healthy foods, tailored to the patient’s specific health needs and preferences, and ideally covered through insurance. Even traditional providers and payors that offer food-as-medicine benefits have experienced surprisingly low rates of utilization due to lack of attractive food options, or difficulties in enrollment, reimbursement, or fulfillment. Thus, most patients fail to follow through on the nutritional coaching they receive with any regularity.

In many ways, our healthcare system is still in the “read-only” era of food-as-medicine – we can readily shop and receive advice for better dietary choices from our doctors, dieticians, health coaches, and even the NYTimes Cooking app, but translating that advice into actual healthy food showing up on our dining tables is still a disjunct, highly manual, and costly process. This is true despite the fact that the consumer food delivery market has doubled during the last two years, with a proliferation of on-demand delivery and pick-up options.

Let thy food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.’ – Hippocrates

In a world where medication non-adherence is one of the biggest contributors to poor health outcomes, we’ve talked and written about how “food is medicine that we take three times a day”.

Food has many properties that you’d wish of medicine – safety (as long as handled, prepared, and stored appropriately), efficacy (a diet of healthy foods is correlated with good health outcomes), and compliance (we all have to eat!) – and is increasingly recognized as a key social determinant of health. But a regimen of multiple healthy meals a day remains a luxury to many Americans, and it continues to be the case that 20% of deaths in the U.S. are attributable to dietary risks, even more than tobacco use.

Against this backdrop, the last decade has seen a surge of healthcare programs focused on metabolic health, whether in the form of coaching for diabetes management, wellness apps for weight loss, or value-based care models for chronic diseases. While these programs may address nutrition through content and coaching, they generally don’t address the actual attainment of healthy foods, tailored to the patient’s specific health needs and preferences, and ideally covered through insurance. Even traditional providers and payors that offer food-as-medicine benefits have experienced surprisingly low rates of utilization due to lack of attractive food options, or difficulties in enrollment, reimbursement, or fulfillment. Thus, most patients fail to follow through on the nutritional coaching they receive with any regularity.

In many ways, our healthcare system is still in the “read-only” era of food-as-medicine – we can readily shop and receive advice for better dietary choices from our doctors, dieticians, health coaches, and even the NYTimes Cooking app, but translating that advice into actual healthy food showing up on our dining tables is still a disjunct, highly manual, and costly process. This is true despite the fact that the consumer food delivery market has doubled during the last two years, with a proliferation of on-demand delivery and pick-up options.