Slow Food NYC was thrilled to host Andrew Bennett (Executive Chef, Lenox Hill Hospital), Amy Benerofe (Founder & President, Our New Way Garden) and Richard LaMarita (Chef Instructor & Ayurvedic Professor, Institute of Culinary Education) for a panel discussion moderated by our Board Vice Chair, Richa Mehra, on the topic of Food as Medicine.
Our Panelists Andrew Bennett, Amy Benerofe, Richard LaMarita and Richa Mehra.
This year’s event was held at Prime Produce and attendees had the opportunity to enjoy a delicious dinner prepared by our Snail of Approval Awardee, Chef Mom Does Café424.
Nicola Campbell from Chef Mom Does Café424.
2025 Food Almanac: Food as Medicine Panel Recap
By Taylor Gutierrez, Slow Food NYC Volunteer
The average person in America probably has the goal to “eat healthier” (that along with maybe going to the gym more) and most people know what “eating healthier” looks like. So why don’t more people do it?
Well, as one chef, Andrew Bennett puts it: “healthy eating is often framed as an all-or-nothing kind of thing”. And while he acknowledges that’s a bit obnoxious – it’s also just not true. The challenge of eating healthy can actually be overcome by starting to make small choices, he says. Eating more greens, cooking more from home… all smaller everyday choices that could lead to building a healthy lifestyle overall.
This was Andrew’s answer when asked what people should do to cook more for themselves – even when they might lack the time or resources to do it. It was just one of many of the hard-hitting questions he answered at an event hosted by Slow Food NYC at Prime Produce in Hell's Kitchen.
Andrew, now the executive chef at Lenox Hill Hospital, hopes to see people’s relationship to food transform in several ways including it being taken more seriously in the healthcare system and not just seen as a lifestyle choice for the average person. Instead, he hopes that people actually start to view food as medicine. As his work within the healthcare system has taught him: seeing food as medicine is one way to treat oneself while battling illness. And because the healthcare system is so reactive, using food as medicine can actually help to prevent chronic disease.
Andrew is involved in this kind of treatment every day. He’s working alongside doctors and dietitians at Northwell Health in New York City to incorporate food as part of the healing process for those suffering from medical conditions. He says the cooking process starts “from producing food that patients will want to eat, that’s culturally appropriate, and widely recognizable to as many people as possible”. Then, medical professionals step in to help to tailor meals to the patient's needs.
This is all part of the reason he’s decided to work with Northwell Health. Prior to that, he was the executive chef of nutrition-focused and Michelin-starred restaurant Rouge Tomate. But his desire to help heal people through food, became clearer as he left the restaurant industry to work in healthcare. Rather than feeding the some most fortunate in an upscale setting, he’s found value in supporting the most vulnerable in a time of need.
Because without proper diet, medicines are of no use but with proper diet, medicines are of no need. At least that’s the idea Richard LaMarita echoed at Slow Food’s panel discussion. For Richard, seeing food as medicine is a critical component of his cooking, and his career as a whole. He serves as the Chief Instructor and Ayurvedic Professor at the Institute of Culinary Education, after having spent over 20 years working in the plant-based program at the Natural Gourmet Institute. Richard has also been a practitioner and teacher of Ayurveda, a traditional form of medicine focused on holistic healing and balance, for over 35 years. “Food as medicine is a foundation of ancient tradition” he says. Unfortunately, our society has lost any sense of this in the last 100 years, he adds.
Fortunately for us though, Richard also shared just a small bit of his vast knowledge of Ayurveda at the panel discussion. He touched on how food, digestion, and how we eat all go hand in hand. The actual ingredients of the food matters just as much as how it’s prepared, which is all just as critical as how well our digestive system can process the food. Not one quality is more important than the other. Furthermore, in ayurvedic medicine there’s actually a roadmap to preparing a healthy meal. According to ayurvedic principles, there are up to 6 different tastes that come together to create a well-balanced dish including foods with sweet, salty, sour, bitter, astringent and pungent ingredients. Some of which help to balance metabolism and bodily fluids, while others strengthen digestion and bodily tissues.
But it's not enough to try to create a well-balanced meal with foods of these ranging tastes. It’s essential to know where they all come from. This is what Amy Benerofe is focused on in her own work: helping to source these ingredients in a mindful way. Amy, the founder of Our New Way Garden in New York City, helps to promote the local food system through farming foods specifically for equitable distribution. The local farming she is a part of harvests food specifically for those struggling with food insecurity, and makes it way to food pantries across the city. As she points out at our panel discussion, we have to see food as medicine because so much of the chronic disease this country is suffering from is “a byproduct of the industrial agricultural system that we’ve known about for years”. And as she says, many of us are just starting to wake up to this reality.
But Amy also likes to believe in fantasy. She pictures a world where farmers would actually be paid for the work they do rather than just selling food for the sake of money. Instead of government subsidies being allocated for mass food production, funding would go to local farmers to support harvesting on a smaller scale and in a healthier way. Food wouldn’t be produced for the masses, it would be sourced for the community around it. In her eyes, farmers would be paid to grow food only for their municipality, meaning that “there would be SO MANY farmers in New York City”, she jokes.
It’s a dream she’s hoping to make real while in collaboration with New York Food for New York Families, one of many programs working to fund farming that is specifically for food pantries and local markets. A program, also now on the chopping block as the USDA continues to make cuts to organizations that support food banks and other feeding organizations through the Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement Program.
“It’s kind of bleak, because of the institutions and industrialized foods available right now,” Amy says. “But nature is so generous and there’s so much abundance” she continues, explaining that everyone should take the opportunity to help each other, and themselves by way of cooking.
“It’s just essential. It’s how we live… Don’t be afraid to just try,” Richard says. People often say that food is fuel, because it is so fundamental to our survival. But maybe we should start saying food is medicine because that is what is vital for our well-being.
