In 2018 diet-related chronic diseases, such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and some cancers, were responsible for half of all deaths in the country, or roughly 1.5 million people. Globally, a study estimates that diet-related diseases are responsible for 11 million deaths each year, making diet the leading risk factor for death.
Given the importance of nutrition and diet, it is surprising to learn that research has shown that between 65-70% of all food in a grocery store is unhealthy, from a nutrition science perspective. But it doesn’t have to be that way and I want to change that.
We live in a world where there are exciting, new, all-natural ingredients, either being discovered or created. That’s how Just Egg was able to develop an egg alternative from mung bean protein isolates years ago. If an ingredient needed to provide a particular taste or function doesn’t exist, today’s food scientists can create it. These new ingredients can provide the taste or function we are used to in a healthier manner. AI is and will continue to help develop knowledge faster than we can apply it to new products to make people and the planet healthier. That is a clear takeaway from visiting the IFT First conference, where 17,000 attendees had the opportunity to see ingredients from over 1,000 exhibitors.
Food as Medicine goes back centuries and can be found in Western, Chinese and Indian (Ayurveda) medicine. Mycotherapy, herbalists, and naturopathic physicians also saw food as medicine. The natural products movement was based on the idea that the body has incredible healing power, if just given (organic, heirloom, all-natural) food to help the body heal itself. Before there were pharmaceuticals, food was a major medical approach to treating disease.
Medical foods have existed for years — specially formulated foods used to manage the nutritional needs of patients with chronic medical conditions or diseases; intended for patients who have limited or impaired abilities to ingest, digest, absorb, or metabolize ordinary foods.
Dr. Stephen De Felice came up with the term nutraceutical in 1989, and amalgam of nutrition” and “pharmaceutical.” These are foods or a part of foods that are beneficial in providing various health benefits including the treatment and/or prevention of disease. A similar term is functional foods, where the biologically active components of functional foods can provide health benefits beyond their nutritional value when consumed regularly. Consumers’ demand for better health from their food has helped drive the growth of functional foods, nutraceuticals and dietary supplements. What’s different is supplements have emerged from their pre-science past and are now involved in evidence-based, even double-blind research.
Nutraceuticals 2.0 is similar to traditional pharmaceutical development and in some cases are life science companies, using nutrition to deliver a targeted therapeutic. Lylah LLC saw the strong correlation between the microbiome and heart disease and developed a therapeutic Nutraceutical/supplement.
The targeted conditions can range from gut health i.e. pre, pro, and postbiotics, metabolic health, hormone health, immunity, inflammation, energy, relaxation, recovery and sleep to chronic diseases such as cancer.
Innovations in protein development such as meat, chicken, and seafood alternatives made from plants, or cultured cells, is proof we have come a long way from bean-based hamburgers. But the same type of innovation is happening in almost every food category. In addition to searching the world for plants with certain desirable characteristics in whole or in part, we can now use techniques such as precision fermentation to create the characteristics we desire. Even if one takes genetic modification and bioengineering off the table, there is plenty of innovation.
Much of the early innovation was driven by the need to move from an animal-based food system to a plant-based one to increase sustainability. At one point, the entire vegetarian/vegan market was estimated to be about $4 billion. Beyond Meat said in its filings that the vegan meat market could grow to about $35 billion of the $250 billion domestic meat industry. The global plant-based milk market was valued at $35 billion in 2021 and is expected to grow to $123.1 billion by 2030. It’s possible that in the next 10 years, few of the products on today’s grocery shelves will exist, as they will be replaced by more sustainable and/or healthier alternatives.
Food is the largest and primary social determinant of health. Food or more specifically, nutrition is the foundation. But it is more than food, it is also diet. Beer and onion rings can be all-natural and vegan, but they are not healthy. For food as/is medicine to realize its potential, nutrition education and coaching must be available on demand and at scale. People need the equivalent of a Registered Dietician Nutritionist to consult with, to achieve a healthier lifestyle. Fortunately, this is possible through digital health apps that focus on nutrition and may or may not include access to an RDN. There is so much misinformation and misleading information and bad food, that our food system is hard to navigate. New ingredients, healthier products and new tools such as digital therapeutics and remote monitoring, have the potential to lead to precision and personal nutrition and medicine, with the desired outcome of a better quality and quantity of life.
At Sunday Celebrations, we see an opportunity to disrupt the Standard American Diet, (SAD) supported by a food system that has become a giant chronic disease delivery system. With all-natural, minimally processed whole foods, a new class of evidence-based nutraceuticals, functional foods and supplements, new ingredients, innovations in food and nutrition science and improved understanding of the microbiome, we can and must replace most if not all the bad food on our grocery store shelves or eaten away from home, with healthier and more sustainable food. We can go beyond using food as medicine to treat or manage disease to prevent diet-related disease in the first place.
The potential exists such that no one has to suffer from diet-driven chronic disease again.
Ed Gaskin is Executive Director of Greater Grove Hall Main Streets and founder of Sunday Celebrations.