On Thursday afternoon, September 25, Food Tank will host the “Food is Medicine and Eating for Health” summit during Climate Week NYC, in partnership with the Sprouts Healthy Communities Foundation. The event will bring leaders in food, health, policy, and culture together to share performances, panels, and conversations on how food can strengthen communities and support a healthier future.
“This summit is about connecting the dots between food, health, and wellness,” says Lyndsey Waugh, Executive Director of the Sprouts Healthy Communities Foundation. “It brings together diverse perspectives to deepen that conversation and inspire new ideas. We hope attendees leave with a stronger sense of how food can truly serve as medicine and how each of us can play a role in building healthier communities.”
Panel discussions will examine how food and nutrition interventions are transforming health outcomes and creating more just and resilient food systems, with topics such as “Nutrition Across Adolescence.”
The summit will be held in the Greene Space at WNYC-NPR Studios, featuring lunch at 1:30pm, programming from 2pm to 4:30pm, and a reception until 5:30pm.
Confirmed speakers include: U.S. Congressman Daniel S. Goldman; Grace Young, James Beard Award-Winning Cookbook Author, Food Historian, and Chinatown Advocate; Tutu Badaru, Assistant Director of Food Access Initiatives & Partnerships, GrowNYC; Nancy Easton, Co-Founder and Executive Director, Wellness in the Schools; Jilly Stephens, Chief Executive Officer, City Harvest; Leslie Gordon, President & CEO, Food Bank For New York City; Robert Graham, Co-Founder, FRESH Med; Tanya Fields, Executive Director, The Black Feminist Project; Kathleen Finlay, President, Glynwood Center for Regional Food and Farming; Christine Going, Senior Advisor, Food Security Program Office within the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs; Lyndsey Waugh, Executive Director, Sprouts Healthy Communities Foundation; Shanon Morris, Chief of Programs, Harlem Grown; A-dae Romero-Briones, Vice President, Native Agriculture & Food Systems, First Nations Development Institute; Charles Platkin, Executive Director, Center for Food as Medicine & Longevity, Co-Founder and Director, MedicalBx; Dr. Geeta Maker-Clark, Director, Integrative Nutrition and Advocacy, Endeavor Health, Co-Director, Culinary Medicine, Pritzker School of Medicine, University of Chicago; Stacey Vanek Smith, Senior Story Editor and Co-Host “Everybody’s Business” Podcast, Bloomberg; and Dana Cowin, an award-winning journalist and former Editor-in-Chief of Food & Wine and founder of Progressive Hedonist.
“Food is Medicine and Eating for Health” will also feature a special musical performance from Racquel Williams, currently appearing on Broadway in The Book of Mormon, accompanied by Maria Caputo, a versatile pianist, composer, and music director. This summit will be streamed live on FoodTank.com and Food Tank’s YouTube Channel, here. Join the Food Tank newsletter list for reminders, and click here for Food Tank’s full lineup of events at Climate Week NYC 2025.
Photo courtesy of Nick Fewings, Unsplash
