FOOD AS MEDICINE
Nearly 80% of premature deaths from chronic illness can be prevented through diet and lifestyle. Yet in the U.S., far too many communities are denied access to the fruits, vegetables, beans, whole grains, nuts, and seeds that sustain life and prevent disease.
While grocery stores in affluent areas overflow with fresh options, systemic inequities force historically underserved and systemically disenfranchised communities to rely heavily on fast food and processed products that fuel illness.
Nearly 39.5 million Americans live in low-income, limited-access food areas, a reality that disproportionately impacts those already burdened by lifestyle-driven chronic illness. This is food apartheid -a systemic injustice that restricts access to affordable, health-promoting nutrition.
Power is Giving’s Charlotte-based programs dismantle these barriers by equipping communities with the knowledge, access and culturally resonant resources needed to embrace a whole food, plant-based optimal wellness lifestyle, supported by more than five thousand studies showing its power to prevent, arrest and reverse our top lifestyle-driven chronic illnesses.
We focus on practical, affordable and culturally aligned tools that help individuals and families apply this evidence in real life, even in places where access has been inadequate and inequitable.
WHAT'S A WHOLE FOOD, PLANT-BASED (WFPB) LIFESTYLE?
According to leading researchers and physicians promoting whole food, plant-based nutrition including but not limited to: Dr. T. Colin Campbell, Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn, Dr. Dean Ornish, Dr. Michael Greger, Nutrition Facts and the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, a whole food, plant-based (WFPB) lifestyle is a way of living that centers whole, minimally processed plant foods and removes the foods proven to raise inflammation, cholesterol and cardio-metabolic risk.
But WFPB living isn’t just what’s on your plate, it's a lifestyle rooted in daily choices that support restoration and the significant reduction of degenerative or lifestyle-derived chronic illness risk.
WFPB living includes whole or minimally processed plant foods:
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vegetables
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fruits
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100% whole or sprouted grains
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beans and lentils
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nuts and seeds
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herbs and spices
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healthy hydration
While eliminating the use of:
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meat, poultry and fish
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cheese, dairy and eggs
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oils
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moderate to ultra-processed foods
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high-salt
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moderate to ultra processed sugars
A WFPB lifestyle is supported by over 5,000 peer reviewed and published studies and decades of research showing that whole plant foods provide the fiber, antioxidants, phytonutrients and anti-inflammatory compounds that help prevent, slow and often reverse lifestyle-driven chronic illness.
Power is Giving promotes a 100% WFPB lifestyle.
NUTRITION EDUCATION GAP IN U.S. MEDICAL TRAINING
Most physicians in the U.S. enter practice deeply trained in diagnosing, treating and managing disease as well as executing needed acute care and their role in all of that work is respected and indispensable.
However, the gap isn’t in their dedication, it’s in the U.S. medical school system that provides an average of under 20 hours of nutrition education across four years, and over 50% of medical students report receiving none at all.
This means most physicians enter practice without the training needed to guide patients like you through dietary approaches that you likely ask them to advise you about. Unfortunately, many understandably fall back on personal eating habits rather than evidence-based nutrition guidance because they weren’t prepared to do otherwise.
This isn’t a failure of individual doctors, it’s a failure of the system.
Because nutrition, especially whole food, plant-based (WFPB) nutrition, is one of the most powerful tools we have to prevent, halt and often reverse the chronic illnesses driving premature death in our communities, we work collaboratively with board-certified physicians and subject matter experts who understand the evidence and support the WFPB lifestyle education embedded throughout our programs across Charlotte and Mecklenburg County, NC.
