Perspective: Food Is Medicine: Hype or Hope?

Food is medicine (FIM) initiatives are food-based nutrition interventions to prevent or manage chronic disease and improve overall health. It is increasingly embraced across healthcare systems, policymakers, and researchers as a promising strategy to address diet-related chronic diseases. Despite this enthusiasm, questions have been raised about whether FIM is overhyped, given the still limited evidence. FIM incorporates interventions such as medically tailored meals, medically tailored groceries, teaching kitchens (TKs), and food prescriptions. Emerging evidence demonstrates these programs' benefits in improving diet quality such as increased fruit and vegetable consumption and some improvements in cardiometabolic risk factors. Limited evidence also indicated potential healthcare cost savings and reduced hospitalizations associated with FIM interventions. Recent advances in FIM include increased medical nutrition education for physicians, precision nutrition approaches, and the use of artificial intelligence in nutritional assessments and personalized meal planning. In addition, community-based programs have integrated culturally relevant foods, whereas culinary medicine and TKs provide more hands-on nutrition education, aimed to improve culinary skills, and promote behavioral changes. Historical and cultural dietary patterns, such as the Mediterranean and Asian diets, can be incorporated into contemporary FIM strategies. FIM, however, faces many challenges such as the potential overmedicalization of food, limitations in current evidence (e.g., small sample sizes and short follow-up), logistical and operational barriers, and issues of access and equity among underserved populations. Future research needs include larger, long-term trials and real-world evidence from natural experiments, more rigorous economic evaluations, and the evaluations of digital health applications. Aligning FIM with broader public health goals and fostering interdisciplinary partnerships are crucial for its sustained impact and greater integration into healthcare systems.