Project Angel Food is making history. As you know, our Medically Tailored Meals — designed by our registered dietitians in collaboration with our chefs — are the core of our lifesaving meal delivery program. Tailored to each of our client’s specific medical condition, we are not only helping end food insecurity for thousands of seriously ill Angelenos, but we are also improving health outcomes.

Here's the historical gamechanger that happened just last week: Medically Tailored Meals have made such a transformative difference in the lives of the people who receive them that President Joe Biden announced at the White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health, access to Medically Tailored Meals will be expanded as a key pillar of the nation’s strategy for improving equitable health for all Americans.

The administration is supporting legislative pilots to test Medically Tailored Meals (MTMs) for individuals in traditional Medicare who are experiencing diet-related health conditions and promises increased guidance and authority from the government agency that oversees Medicare and Medicaid for states that want to have their own pilots. What we know is this: seriously ill people receiving an intervention of Medically Tailored Meals and nutritional counseling, like ours, see a 32% decline in healthcare costs, 63% reduction in hospitalizations, and 50% higher drug adherence. Food truly is medicine.

We’ve seen this work! As a leader in the Food is Medicine movement, and one of the founding organizations of the Food Is Medicine Coalition, Project Angel Food was part of a groundbreaking, four-year California State pilot, providing our Medically Tailored Meals to Medi-Cal clients with Congestive Heart Failure. It was a rousing success, and we will release an official report of the findings next year.

We know this historic announcement will be a catalyst to expanding our vital work to so many of our neighbors in need. There is still much work to be done as we will be challenged to keep up with the demand for our lifesaving meals. But we will rise to the challenge with your ongoing support — For LIFE. For LOVE. For as long as it takes…