Corby Kummer
Executive Director of Food & Society at the Aspen Institute, senior lecturer at Tufts Friedman School, and senior editor at The Atlantic. He is a nationally recognized food policy, sustainable food systems, and food justice expert, author, commentator, and James Beard Journalism Award winner.
Food as Medicine Depends on Farms, Kitchens, and Community
Food as medicine depends on more than getting healthier ingredients onto a plate, argues moderator Corby Kummer and a panel of Chicago chefs and food-system leaders: it requires affordable access, viable farms, cooking knowledge and time to turn food into meals. Rick Bayless cautions that treating food as medicine can strip it of pleasure, while Cliff Rome and Sarah Stegner describe teaching kitchens, markets and farmer-support programs as ways to make fresh, local food a durable part of household and community life.
Washington’s Anti-Ultra-Processed Food Push Splits Food-System Reformers
In “The American Wellness Paradox,” White House adviser Calley Means and NYU emerita professor Marion Nestle argue from shared ground that ultra-processed food, refined carbohydrates, poor school meals, weak regulation and chronic disease are failures of the US health system. Their dispute is over what a politically empowered food-reform agenda should do with that diagnosis: Means presents the Trump administration’s moves on dietary guidelines, SNAP, procurement and additives as a historic breakthrough, while Nestle says the same opening demands stronger science, cleaner execution and deeper reform of agriculture and food access.
Older-Adult Nutrition Needs Medical Evidence and Community Infrastructure
Food & Society at the Aspen Institute and the National Association of Nutrition and Aging Services Programs convened Robert Blancato, Kathleen Graim and Patrick Stover to argue that older-adult nutrition should be treated as health infrastructure, not just emergency food aid. Their case is that effective interventions must account for changing physiology, chronic disease, isolation, mobility, mental health and home conditions, while producing the evidence and reimbursement pathways policymakers require. The discussion places the Older Americans Act, medically tailored meals, dietitians and community-based delivery at the center of that agenda.
SNAP Purchase Restrictions Are Creating Checkout Confusion, Not Clearer Nutrition
In a Food & Society at the Aspen Institute and Global Food Institute webinar on SNAP purchase restrictions, practitioners argued that the policies are being experienced less as nutrition guidance than as a patchwork of checkout-line denials. Propel’s Justin King, Feeding Texas’s Celia Cole, Restore OKC’s Rachel Newman and NACS’s Margaret Mannion said state-by-state rules are confusing recipients, burdening small retailers and driving substitutions or cash purchases rather than clear evidence of healthier diets. Their practical alternative was to put more weight on access and incentives than prohibition.