Here in the U.S. but certainly also all over the world, when people have questions about health and wellness, nearly three-quarters of us turn to the internet first. And in a country where 1 in 2 adults is experiencing diabetes or pre-diabetes and 7 in 10 faces overweight or obesity, according to The Food is Medicine Institute at Tufts University, nutrition is increasingly a central subject we’re relying on technology to help guide.
This week, I was in Washington, D.C. for FIMCON, a new national Food is Medicine Conference. I moderated a panel that explored how we can communicate nutrition and health messages to the public using a mix of digital platforms, behavioral science, and emerging artificial intelligence (AI) tools. I spoke with experts including Nira Goren, MD, Head of AI for Societal Health & Food is Medicine at Google; Noosheen Hashemi, Founder & CEO of January AI; and Sarah Mastrorocco, VP & GM of Instacart Health.
I find it fascinating that the increasing public realization of the power of Food is Medicine in recent years has coincided with the boom of generative AI, and I’ve got to be honest: It makes me both excited and nervous. GenAI is a hugely powerful tool—and with major opportunity comes the serious challenge of using it responsibly. That’s exactly why we need to talk about it.
According to a study in Frontiers in Nutrition, AI can be used to deliver personalized nutrition recommendations, enable early dietary interventions to prevent chronic diseases, and optimize food processing to reduce food waste. At the Periodic Table of Food Initiative, researchers are using AI alongside a global database to map out what they call the “dark matter” of food—the overwhelming majority of biomolecules in food we don’t know about—to improve human and planetary health.
These potential impacts stretch from your forks all the way back to our farm fields. At the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) this week, the annual Menus of Change summit brought together chefs, advocates, and private-sector food leaders to discuss ways that food systems of the future—including health-oriented technologies like AI—begin in the kitchen.
And as we’ve reported at Food Tank, AI tools can also help farmers improve their land management practices via precision agriculture; analyze climate risks and predict disruptions before they become disastrous; and strengthen transparent and traceable supply chains.
But of course, no technological solution is a silver bullet. Along with well-documented environmental impacts that cannot be ignored, generative AI exists in an overwhelming internet information ecosystem that is not always accurate.