Food, Care, and the Rebellion Against a Broken System with Laura Pensiero
Wed Jan 28 2026
What if food were treated as care, not convenience?
In this episode of The Caring Economy, we sit down with Laura Pensiero, a registered dietitian, chef, and leading voice in the Food Is Medicine movement, to unpack how nutrition quietly shapes nearly every outcome we care about, from long-term health to workplace resilience to healthcare costs.
Laura shares her journey from the Hudson Valley to professional kitchens to collaborating with physicians at Memorial Sloan Kettering, where she helped translate clinical research into practical, everyday nourishment. We explore why dietary patterns like the Mediterranean diet continue to outperform trends, what precision and personalized nutrition could unlock next, and why food remains one of the most underutilized tools in modern healthcare.
At a moment when health systems are strained, burnout is widespread, and prevention is finally entering the policy conversation, this episode asks a deeper question: what would it look like to build a system that supports care before crisis?
This conversation is about food, but it’s also about leadership, systems, and rethinking what we value in a caring economy.
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What if food were treated as care, not convenience? In this episode of The Caring Economy, we sit down with Laura Pensiero, a registered dietitian, chef, and leading voice in the Food Is Medicine movement, to unpack how nutrition quietly shapes nearly every outcome we care about, from long-term health to workplace resilience to healthcare costs. Laura shares her journey from the Hudson Valley to professional kitchens to collaborating with physicians at Memorial Sloan Kettering, where she helped translate clinical research into practical, everyday nourishment. We explore why dietary patterns like the Mediterranean diet continue to outperform trends, what precision and personalized nutrition could unlock next, and why food remains one of the most underutilized tools in modern healthcare. At a moment when health systems are strained, burnout is widespread, and prevention is finally entering the policy conversation, this episode asks a deeper question: what would it look like to build a system that supports care before crisis? This conversation is about food, but it’s also about leadership, systems, and rethinking what we value in a caring economy.