Program fights food insecurity with a 'prescription' of fruits and vegetables

Food RX: Reimagining food as medicine A new program is delivering food boxes to fight food insecurity and reimagining food as medicine. FoodShareTO's Sheldomar Elliott explains.

The effects of the pandemic and inflation have led to a spike in Canadians facing food insecurity, but a program in Toronto is tackling this issue by reimagining food as medicine.

The Food Rx program, which is run in collaboration between FoodShare Toronto and the University Health Network, delivers a "prescription" of a box of fresh fruits and vegetables to Torontonians who would otherwise struggle to put healthy food on the table.

"The program came about as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic. As we saw the rates of food insecurity and social isolation increasing, FoodShare knew that we had to step in to try to do something," FoodShare Toronto's Sheldomar Elliott told CTV's Your Morning on Thursday.

A box of food is delivered to Food Rx participants every two weeks. More than 200 participants receive 1,269 food boxes over a period of three months.

"At the end of those weeks, myself, we'll give them a call to do a check-in to see how their mental well-being, their physical well-being is and what the food is that they're making and cooking," Elliott explained.

Many of the Food Rx participants are newcomers, women, racialized people and Indigenous people, Elliott said.

"What will happen once the program ends is that they will continue to struggle with structural disadvantages like poverty," he added.

Last October, a report from Food Banks Canada found that since 2019, visits to food banks across the country rose by 20 per cent since 2019, a level of demand not seen since the 2008 recession.

A poll from earlier in June also found that almost a quarter of Canadians reported eating less than they should because there wasn't enough money for food and one-in-five reported going hungry at least once between March 2020 and March 2022.

But while Food Rx has helped Torontonians facing barriers to food, Elliott said programs like this can only be a "temporary fix," while permanent solutions can only be addressed by policy solutions, such as increasing the minimum wage to a livable standard, doubling disability assistance or recognizing food as a human right.

"What FoodShare really sees is that at every level of government, there needs to be a policy landscape that is rolled out to support people to be able to afford that the food that they want with dignity," he said.

With files from CTVNews.ca's Jennifer Ferreira and The Canadian Press.