Learnings from lyft Lady: The “future of food” is “food as medicine.” Dairy foods are part of the movement.

 

It’s a busy few weeks in food and agriculture. I’m very much looking forward to judging the student ice cream innovation contest at Oregon State University in Corvallis, Oregon, this afternoon, sponsored by Ever Fresh Fruit Company. Then it’s onto New Orleans for IDDBA, and back home to Chicago on Monday for back-to-back conferences: Future Food Tech and Food as Medicine. While all of these events will be educational, the conversation with my lyft driver taking me from Eugene to Corvallis on Thursday afternoon may be the most informative of all. That’s because talking with real people and hearing their needs and desires beats every survey and AI-generated concept, in my perspective. 

My 40-year-old female driver moved from Los Angeles to Willamette Valley soon after the pandemic, leaving a stressful Hollywood career and lifestyle that wreaked havoc on her autoimmune disease. She decided to take her health into control through diet after years of prescription medications that only controlled symptoms. After a year of avoiding certain foods and ingredients, while including more of others, she put her disease into remission and today is symptom free. This is “food as medicine.” This is the future of food. 

Today this woman drives lyft to make sure the bills get paid, while she establishes her consultancy as a “Functional Food Coach.” She educates others on holistic approaches to improving health and overall wellness. 

“It starts on the inside, and is all about restoring balance to the microbes in the gut,” she said.
This woman was talking my language. While she has no formal training, she knows her stuff. This is “food as medicine.” This is the future of food. 

While her initial omission diet did exclude dairy—not animal meat—she recognized its importance and has slowly been reintroducing dairy to her diet, opting for local, grass fed, lactose free and A2 options. The raw milk conversation came up. She was eager to learn more.

I have no formal training in this area. I tried my best to keep it simple. I explained that while raw milk may offer benefits in terms of providing digestive enzymes and contributing to immune function--inherent compounds in milk that break down during high-heat processing--the risks from the presence of pathogenic organisms outweigh the benefits. 

I affirmed that raw and pasteurized milk both contain the same high-quality, complete proteins, healthful fats,  and essential vitamins and minerals. She was thankful for this dialog and assured me she will do more research and stay clear of raw milk. This is “food as medicine.” This is the future of food. 

We moved onto whole food nutrition, which is the type of diet she now follows and promotes. I brought up the Dairy Matrix. Thanks to a presentation given by Moises Torres-Gonzales, vice president of nutrition research at Dairy Management Inc. (DMI) at the ADPI/ABI Annual Conference, I was confident in explaining how food provides calories that the body requires to simply run, but food also contains macronutrients, micronutrients  and bioactives responsible for critical steps in physiological functions. Scientists are starting to better understand that these compounds, when present in whole, minimally processed foods, interact with each other, impacting digestion and absorption. In the dairy industry, this is now called the Dairy Matrix effect. In simple terms, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. This is “food as medicine.” This is the future of food. 

After a 45-minute drive and 30 minutes of conversation—it took 10 minutes to break the ice and find out we had so much in common—we arrived at my hotel. I think we could have talked for hours. We wished each other well and gave out an air hug. 

I feel confident in saying that dairy is part of the “food as medicine” movement. This is the future of food. Remember to always talk dairy up. You never know how far the messaging will go.

Hope to see many of you in New Orleans on Sunday!