Produce Prescription ** What?

I recently came across the term: “Produce prescription program” — sounds like a fancy way to say, “Eat your veggies, or else!”

Upon further digging, I found that indeed these programs are a type of health intervention (mostly in Western countries) that aims to increase fruit and vegetable consumption among people who are at risk for diet-related health conditions!

A recent study found that if we handed out these produce prescriptions to patients with diabetes and food insecurity, we could prevent a whopping 300,000 cardiovascular disease events and save over $10 billion in healthcare costs over a decade.

Now, that’s a lot of green — in more ways than one.

Meanwhile, in India, this is less of a groundbreaking revelation and more of a “Well, duh!” moment.

When someone’s under the weather and is in the hospital, we don’t bring them chocolates or flowers — we bring them fruits! It’s a practice steeped in our culture and Ayurvedic traditions.

So, while it’s heartening to see modern medicine finally catching up and acknowledging the power of a plant-based diet, over here we’re just munching on our last mangoes of the season and saying, “Told you so!”