America Is in a Health Crisis—And We Know It
Our diet is killing us. And the way we produce our food is killing our planet.
Today, more than 40% of Americans are obese, and 60% live with at least one chronic disease such as heart disease, diabetes, dementia, or cancer. These diseases are not only devastating to human health—they are a primary driver of skyrocketing healthcare costs, weakened national security, and declining workforce productivity.
Ninety percent of all U.S. healthcare spending (much of this funded by your taxes) goes toward treating chronic conditions—many of which are preventable and diet-related. The COVID-19 pandemic laid bare the vulnerability of Americans with chronic illness, underscoring the urgent need for systemic reform.
These diseases are now the leading causes of death and disability in America and the primary drivers of our nation’s nearly $5 trillion in annual health care spending (roughly 20% of all government spending).
Many of these illnesses are fueled by a broken food system. Ultra-processed, nutrient-poor foods dominate our grocery stores, schools, hospitals, and government programs—while millions of Americans live in communities with little or no access to fresh, healthy options. What’s worse, the same system that’s making us sick is also depleting our soils, polluting our water, and contributing to climate change.
We don’t just have a health crisis—we have a food crisis. And what America needs is a Food Fix.
A Broken System The Food Fix Solution
The food system we have today is not a product of failure—it’s the result of well-intentioned policies designed in an earlier era to solve a different problem: hunger. And to a large extent, those goals were met. The postwar agricultural revolution helped prevent mass starvation, increase yields, and drive global food production. Yet those same policies also gave rise to unintended consequences—a food system hyper-focused on a handful of commodities, dominated by ultra-processed products, and supported by subsidies and policies that no longer serve the public good.
The consequences are staggering: degraded soil and water, rising greenhouse gas emissions, a chronic disease epidemic, and vast inequities in access to nutritious food. Billions of taxpayer dollars continue to prop up a system that promotes chemical-intensive monoculture, refined carbohydrates, and ultra-processed foods—while doing almost nothing to support regenerative farming, local food economies, or minimally processed, protective foods. Flawed nutrition guidance, like the 1990s-era Food Pyramid, still shapes farm subsidies, school meals, and public understanding of what it means to eat healthfully. A recent GAO report confirmed what many already know: our food policy is fragmented, outdated, and failing.
And yet—this is a fixable problem.
We must step back and see the food system for what it is: a single, interconnected system that is out of balance. Fixing it will require collaboration across every sector—from citizens and consumers to farmers and food companies, researchers and nonprofits, local governments and federal policymakers.
We need new thinking, new strategies, and bold action from both the top down and the bottom up. And we must center systems thinking—understanding how agriculture, nutrition, economics, health care, and climate are all bound together.
That’s why I wrote Food Fix. This book is not just an exposé of a broken system—it’s a roadmap for change. Inside, you’ll find practical, achievable solutions. Some are already being piloted around the country. Others are bold policy ideas proposed by leading experts. Some can be implemented today; others require structural reform. But together, they represent a vision of what’s possible when we stop treating food policy in silos and start designing a system built for health, sustainability, and equity.
Throughout Food Fix, we’ll explore how citizens, entrepreneurs, health professionals, investors, and policymakers can all contribute to this transformation. Because fixing our food system is the key to fixing everything—from chronic disease and health care costs to climate change and rural revitalization.
We need a movement. We need momentum. And we need your voice.
I invite you to join the Food Fix Campaign, take personal action, and urge policymakers to embrace the solutions that can improve our health, protect our environment, and strengthen our economy. Learn more and become part of the movement at www.foodfix.org.
The time to fix our food system is now.
The Food Fix Solution
We believe that food is the foundation of health, climate, and economic resilience—and that fixing our food system is one of the most consequential levers we can pull in this generation.
Our Strategy: From Research to Policy Reform
We’re advancing systemic, evidence-based solutions at every level of the food system—from seed to soil, and farm to fork. By reimagining how federal dollars are spent on food, agriculture, and health, we can transform the physical and fiscal health of the nation.
Our focus includes two strategic pillars:
- Food as Medicine: Treating food as medicine means integrating nutrition counseling, medically tailored meals, and lifestyle-based interventions into our healthcare system. These approaches are proven to prevent, manage, and even reverse chronic disease, improve quality of life, and reduce long-term healthcare costs.
- Regenerative Organic Agriculture (ROA): Promoting ROA will modernize American farming by improving soil health, restoring biodiversity, and producing nutrient-rich food—without synthetic chemicals. It also improves economic outcomes for farmers, helping them transition to sustainable practices while accessing new markets and incentives.
Our Mission: Cutting Chronic Disease by One-Third by 2030
Our objective is bold but achievable: to reduce the prevalence of chronic disease by one-third by 2030 through stronger nutrition policy, improved prevention, and smarter federal investments. This effort will save lives, reduce serious illness, boost economic productivity, and eliminate hundreds of billions in avoidable healthcare costs each year.
We will educate and mobilize policymakers around initiatives that prevent and treat chronic illness, promote long-term wellness, and center nutrition and preventative care as essential strategies for combating the chronic disease crisis.
Achieving this shift requires challenging the status quo—including acknowledging that marginalized communities disproportionately suffer from diet-related conditions. Nearly 23 million Americans live in areas designated as “food deserts” (with limited access to fresh fruits and vegetables) or “food swamps” (saturated with ultra-processed foods and fast-food chains). Many of these communities are home to racial and ethnic minority populations historically underserved by our health and food systems.
Our Strategy: Time-Sensitive Action to Treat Food as Medicine
To meet our 2030 goal, we recommend urgent and proven reforms that use nutrition as a front-line intervention to prevent and reverse disease:
- Authorize a White House Commission on Food and Health:
Pass legislation establishing a blue-ribbon White House commission on healthy food and nutrition. The commission would elevate national attention on nutrition disparities, especially in underserved communities, and quantify the economic opportunity in preventing chronic disease progression—saving tens of billions in future healthcare costs. - Engage the Executive Branch to Reform Federal Food Procurement:
Partner with the White House Domestic Policy Council and key executive branch officials to issue new guidance on food procurement that prioritizes regeneratively grown, nutrient-rich foods. These procurement standards would apply across federal food programs, leveraging the government’s purchasing power to drive healthier markets and food systems. - Advance “Food as Medicine” Across Public and Private Sectors:
Build a cross-sector coalition to support the integration of medical nutrition therapy and patient-centered meals into federal health programs. These steps can be authorized through administrative action without waiting for Congress, making them ideal focal points of our near-term engagement strategy. - Regenerative Organic Agriculture (ROA): Promoting ROA will modernize American farming by improving soil health, restoring biodiversity, and producing nutrient-rich food—without synthetic chemicals. It also improves economic outcomes for farmers, helping them transition to sustainable practices while accessing new markets and incentives.
Treating food as medicine has the potential to halt or even reverse chronic disease for millions of Americans, reducing the need for costly interventions and improving both health outcomes and quality of life.
Promoting Regenerative Organic Agriculture (ROA)
Promoting Regenerative Organic Agriculture (ROA) is one of the most promising strategies we have to confront the twin crises of chronic disease and climate change, while revitalizing rural economies and protecting our food supply. ROA is a science-based, scalable solution that restores soil health, improves water retention, reduces chemical dependency, and produces more nutrient-dense food—all while increasing farmer profitability and community resilience. It is a win-win for climate, public health, and the agricultural economy.
In contrast, the modern industrial food system—built on monocropping, synthetic fertilizers, chemical pesticides, and intensive tilling—has become one of the greatest threats to both human and environmental health. What was once designed to maximize yield and reduce hunger has evolved into a system that now delivers nutrient-poor food, degraded land, polluted waterways, and skyrocketing rates of chronic disease.
Over the last century, industrial agriculture has stripped the soil of its living biology—the microbial ecosystem that drives nutrient cycling, carbon storage, water retention, and plant immunity. In its place, we’ve substituted synthetic chemicals that require ever-higher application rates just to maintain yield. These chemicals poison ecosystems, contaminate water supplies, and release nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas nearly 300 times more potent than carbon dioxide.
The damage doesn’t stop at the farm. When soil is depleted, the food it grows is less nutritious. Multiple studies show that modern fruits, vegetables, and grains contain significantly fewer vitamins, minerals, and protective phytonutrients than they did 50 years ago. We now face a paradox in which millions of Americans are overfed but undernourished—consuming enough calories, but lacking the nutrients needed for health. This “hidden hunger” contributes to the rise of malnutrition, chronic illness, and weakened immunity, even in food-secure households. Simply put: the health of our soil is directly tied to the health of our people.
ROA isn’t just about growing better food—it’s about building a stronger, more climate-resilient, nutrition-driven agricultural system that works for people and the planet. Healthy soil is the engine behind higher yields, greater biodiversity, improved food security, and carbon sequestration. Key ROA practices—particularly the widespread use of cover crops—play a central role in this transformation. Cover crops improve soil structure, suppress weeds, reduce erosion, increase nutrient availability, and reduce reliance on harmful chemical inputs. And yet, despite their many benefits, adoption remains low due to policy misalignment, infrastructure gaps, and financing barriers.
The imbalance is especially clear when we look at organic production. While 8% of food consumed in the U.S. is organic, only 1% of U.S. farmland is certified organic—compared to over 9% in the European Union. As a result, much of the organic food sold in the U.S. is imported, leaving domestic regenerative farmers underserved and underfunded by conventional agricultural programs.
The Food Fix Campaign is committed to increasing certified organic farmland by one-third by 2030, while building widespread awareness that soil is not just a resource—it’s a solution. If we invest in ROA and level the playing field for regenerative farmers, we can rebuild our soils, restore our health, reduce emissions, and create a food system that nourishes instead of harms.
