© 2025 Canadian Malnutrition Task Force
From Bedside to Policy: Leadership for Food as Medicine in Healthcare
October 6, 202512:00 PM - 01:00 PM
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Date: Monday, October 6, 2025
Time: 12:00 - 13:00 ET
REGISTER HERE
This webinar is brought to you by CMTF as part of Canadian Malnutrition Awareness Week™ October 6 - 10, 2025 "Unveiling Solutions"
This webinar is presented in English / Ce webinaire sera présenté en Anglais.
Webinar description:
Malnutrition in Canada remains a serious concern, calling for strong leadership to raise awareness, identify solutions, and advocate for change. The Canadian Malnutrition Task Force (CMTF) is advancing government advocacy and working with health leaders and practitioners to address malnutrition across all health care sectors. Nourish, a growing national network, envisions a bold future for Food as Medicine. Over the past nine years, they have partnered with hospitals and health organizations across Canada to reimagine food’s role in health care—from patient meals and food prescriptions to centring Indigenous foodways and supporting sustainable, local procurement.
Addressing today’s complex challenges requires a more integrated, holistic approach to Food as Medicine—one rooted in equity, sustainability, and place-based knowledge. This means restoring food’s rightful place not only on the patient tray, but also in decision-making spaces—boardrooms, budgets, and policies—extending beyond healthcare walls to drive systems change for planetary health and reconciliation.
Diet-related disease, food insecurity, and the erosion of Indigenous food sovereignty are intensifying—placing growing pressure on our healthcare system. Through partnerships with hospitals and health organizations across Canada, Nourish has explored innovations ranging from patient meals to upstream interventions like food prescribing. A key insight from this work: our healthcare system lacks a cohesive framework for understanding and implementing Food as Medicine.
To help fill this gap, Nourish has adapted the Tufts Food is Medicine Pyramid to guide a holistic approach to improving health outcomes through food. One of the core challenges is the siloing of food-related efforts—often framed solely as either equity or sustainability issues. These are to be viewed as deeply interconnected and food, health, and healing cannot be separated from place, culture, or community.
In this session, the Canadian Malnutrition Task Force (CMTF) will share a brief update on their recent work to unveil solutions for malnutrition across the health system. This will be followed by a presentation from speakers from the Nourish national network, highlighting successful efforts to drive system-wide change in advancing Food as Medicine, along with emerging policy opportunities. Learnings from Nourish projects exploring culinary medicine, food prescribing, and policy innovation will also be shared. Attendees will leave with practical takeaways, including actionable strategies for their own settings and opportunities for collaboration to advance food as medicine and address malnutrition.
Learning Objectives:
By the end of this webinar the audience will be able to:
- Become familiar with CMTFs work to unveil solutions for malnutrition across healthcare
- Explore the Nourish framework for food as medicine - weaving together culture, healing, and human and planetary health
- Learn about Nourish’s work on culinary medicine, food prescribing and policy innovation
- Gain inspiration and practical tools to build more food as medicine practices to address malnutrition and advance planetary health
Speakers:
Jennifer Reynolds, Executive Director, Nourish
Elaine Chu, RD, Director of Food Service Transformation and Strategic Projects at Fraser Health, BC
Moderator: To be confirmed
About the Speakers:
Jennifer Reynolds - is a strategic leader with over 20 years’ experience in sustainable agriculture, local food promotion, food policy, institutional food, and community food security. She brings proven strengths in collaborative leadership, strategy, policy analysis, and communications. Jennifer believes aligning mission, mandate, and margin can transform systems—and that delicious food drives innovation in health and sustainability. She has worked with farmers, communities, institutions, and policymakers through Food Secure Canada, Select Nova Scotia, and FoodShare Toronto.
Elaine Chu, RD - As a registered dietitian and the Director of Food Service Transformation and Strategic Projects at Fraser Health, BC, Elaine Chu has a profound interest in advancing food in health care for both people’s health and planetary health. Over the years, Elaine has pioneered initiatives to reduce the carbon footprint related to hospital food systems but have also focused on enhancing patient satisfaction. By engaging staff and fostering cross-health authority collaborations, Elaine has ensured that these improvements are integrated into the hospital’s culture, emphasizing respect for patient choices, safety in meal preparation, and equitable access to high-quality food options. Elaine Chu is currently leading multi-health authority collaborations and working groups to advance the “Food Strategy for People and Planet” at a systemic level through six pillars: Satisfaction, Menu, Waste, Procurement, Engagement and Measurement.
About the Moderator:
Coming soon
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