Episode 143: Food is Medicine Goes Mainstream
About the Podcast
What’s the hype around the “food as medicine” concept? You’ll want to listen in to find out. More often than not, this idea marries healthcare and nutrition in the form of medically-tailored meals and groceries or produce prescriptions. During this podcast, Alyssa Baldino, Associate Director of Nutrition Services at Project Angel Food, spills the beans on all the novel programs and policy coming out of this arena.
About Alyssa Baldino
A New Jersey native, Alyssa Baldino received her bachelor's in nutrition from Syracuse University, and her Master's in Public Health from Charles Drew University. Combining her clinical, food service, and community experience, Project Angel Food has been a dream job. She has been with Project Angel Food since June 2019 and is currently the Associate Director of Nutrition Services.
Alyssa is active within the nutrition community, having served on the executive board for the Los Angeles Dietetic Association, the Hunger and Environmental Nutrition Dietetic Practice Group, and the Public Health/Community Nutrition Dietetic Practice Group.
Discussion Takeaways
- Project Angel Food is a food-as-medicine organization started in 1989 during the AIDs epidemic. They now serve those with multiple disease states: AIDS, cancer, diabetes, congestive heart failure and more.
- Alyssa initially worked with Community Serving in Boston that linked her to Project Angel Food.
- This nonprofit focuses on providing for the sickest of the sick, those who can’t cook. Project Angel Food freezes fresh, dignified meals for people to heat up at their leisure. Other programs that deliver medically tailored meals send groceries too as patients start feeling better.
- The Food as Medicine Coalition’s goal is to make medically tailored meals available to everyone.
- The Native American Diabetes Project was funded and run by a board member of Project Angel Food. This person is a part of the indigenous population, and he wanted something to help his people. His programming has partnered with the University of Southern California and United American Indian Involvement (UAII). It’s become a research study where UAII is utilizing a health clinic, measuring patients’ labs, providing each patient with a “buddy” from the community to walk them through their diabetes journey, and Project Angel Food is in charge of food production and distribution. They’re trying to incorporate more indigenous food recipes into their menu cycle too. You are actually able to submit a recipe on Project Angel Food’s website at this link. You can potentially get paid for this recipe, if the team is able to medically tailor it and place the food onto their menu.
- The Food as Medicine Coalition is a group of people who came up with national nutrition standards for medically tailored meals, continue to foster the clinical community within the meal delivery space, and support major advocacy efforts.
- Representative John McGovern has proposed a bill, R. 5370: Medically Tailored Home-Delivered meals Demonstration Pilot Act of 2021, which your local representative should sign. It supports funding medically tailored meal projects across 10 states. The goal is to truly build on this concept’s research base so we can integrate it into all of our health systems.
#1 tip to improve access to healthy food
- The healing power of food can be felt even when you are sick.
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