FRESH FOOD RX

Innovative, food-based healthcare. Let food be our medicine!

Doctors and healthcare practitioners prescribe fresh food to community members who need it for their health. Participants redeem their prescriptions for free fruits and vegetables.

Here’s what we know…

Eating fruits and vegetables is linked to lower rates of chronic illnesses (such as cardio-vascular diseases, diabetes and cancers)
People with the lowest household incomes are the least likely to consume the recommended amounts of fresh food, because it is more expensive and harder to store
Economically vulnerable Canadians have the highest rates of dietary illnesses, which impact every aspect of our lives
Treating these illnesses is costing our health system up to 121% more

Investing in good food changes health trajectories… which benefits everyone.

Our Fresh Food Rx Pilots and Studies

Phase 1 (2019-2020)

Through a provincial pilot of social prescribing by the Alliance for Healthier Communities and Ontario Trillium Foundation, we launched our own Fresh Food Prescription pilot in 2019. Our first pilot had 60 households using their prescriptions weekly for 12 weeks at the Community Food Markets. We partnered with the University of Guelph to evaluate the pilot closely.

Here is the study, published in the Archives of Public Health in July 2021: https://archpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13690-021-00657-6

Phase 2 (2020-2022)

Fresh Food Rx has received multi-year funding in partnership with the Sprott Foundation. With their support we are able to offer prescriptions to families for longer periods of time than we did in Phase 1, which will lead to greater health outcomes for participating households. We have also received funding from The Schad Foundation that has helped increase the number of households we are able to offer prescriptions to. Prescriptions are now redeemed on our online store, Groceries from The SEED. We are partnering with the University of Guelph and the University of Victoria for evaluation and are excited to see results.