Giving Compass' Take:

• More states and health professionals are pushing for the 'food as medicine' concept which proposes that people build gardens and cook healthier food from those gardens. 

• How expensive it is to build a garden and what kind of space do people need for that? How can health professionals address the issue of affordability and accessibility to healthy foods? 

• Read about a nutrition website that connects young adults to healthy eating habits. 

Half a century after Americans began fighting hunger with monthly food stamps, the nation’s physicians and policymakers are focusing more than ever on what’s on each person’s plate.

In the 21st century, food is seen as medicine — and a tool to cut health care costs.

The “food is medicine” concept is simple: If chronically ill people eat a nutritious diet, they’ll need fewer medications, emergency room visits and hospital readmissions. The food is medicine spectrum ranges from simply encouraging people to plant a garden and learn to cook healthfully, as state Sen. Judy Lee, a Republican, does in North Dakota — “We don’t do policies about gardening,” she said — to an intensive California pilot project that delivers two medically tailored meals plus snacks daily and offers three counseling sessions with a registered dietitian over 12 weeks.

The California Legislature last year became the first in the nation to fund a large-scale pilot project to test food is medicine. The three-year, $6 million project launched in April will serve about a thousand patients with congestive heart failure in seven counties.

Food is medicine goes beyond traditional advice to eat more fruits and vegetables. Projects pay for people to purchase produce and offer nutrition counseling and cooking classes, so they’ll know which foods to choose or avoid and how to prepare them. For example, watermelon is healthy for some, but not for a diabetic.

On the local level, a community garden managed by a teenager in Sylvester, Georgia, aims — with the help of the local hospital — to improve the health of the town in the nation’s “stroke belt.”

Physicians in a dozen states write “prescriptions” for fruits and vegetables at farmers markets and groceries — scripts that can be exchanged for tokens to buy produce.

Read the full article about food as medicine by Marsha Mercer at Governing Magazine