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How Foodom Is Transforming Healthcare: Chef-Powered Food as Medicine

Evolution of Medicine Podcast

Release Date: 05/14/2025

The Alzheimer’s Mind Hack show art The Alzheimer’s Mind Hack

Evolution of Medicine Podcast

In this episode of The Evolution of Medicine, host James Maskell sits down with researcher and author Dawson Church to explore the powerful intersection of mindset, spiritual intelligence, and brain health. The conversation challenges the idea that Alzheimer’s is an inevitable genetic destiny, highlighting how lifestyle, thought patterns, and emotional practices can influence disease progression. You’ll learn about the latest research showing how positive thinking, meditation, and relational spirituality can suppress Alzheimer’s gene expression, stimulate neuroplasticity, and improve...

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Total Load Theory (Featuring: Patricia S. Lemer) show art Total Load Theory (Featuring: Patricia S. Lemer)

Evolution of Medicine Podcast

This week on the podcast, we welcome Patti Lemer who last year gave me the opportunity to do something I’ve never done before, write the foreword to her new book. Patti is an OG in the autism space and a true pioneer in understanding the environmental drivers impacting children’s health. The book is Total Load Theory. Many people know Patti from her earlier work, Outsmarting Autism, which drew from decades of hands-on experience working with kids on the spectrum. Long before environmental illness entered mainstream conversation, Patti was already mapping the terrain, looking at toxic...

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2026 | A Call to the Most Important Mission of Our Lifetime show art 2026 | A Call to the Most Important Mission of Our Lifetime

Evolution of Medicine Podcast

To start the year, I would love it if you could find 10 minutes today to read what I believe is the most important blog I’ve written. It contextualizes the importance of both my first book, The Evolution of Medicine and my second, The Community Cure, to now what I believe is the most important moment and mission of our time… I also reviewed the incredible recent Lyme Disease Roundtable that probably should have been 30 years ago, but it is exciting to see something come into light that has been hidden to health seekers and clinicians alike. It sets up our community for leadership on this...

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Senior Living & Precision Brain Health show art Senior Living & Precision Brain Health

Evolution of Medicine Podcast

This week on the Evolution of Medicine podcast, we’re exploring what may be the most natural, and most underutilized, home for precision brain health: senior living. Earlier this year, I was introduced to Doug Motter, President of Homestead Village in Pennsylvania. For the past 27 years, Doug has been guiding a 600-resident senior living community with a clear north star: health, dignity, and longevity. He joins me on the podcast alongside Hal Cranmer, CEO of A Paradise for Parents, a five-location senior living organization in Arizona. While their communities are different, Doug and Hal...

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Can Functional Medicine Help With ALS, MND? show art Can Functional Medicine Help With ALS, MND?

Evolution of Medicine Podcast

This week on the podcast we feature Dr. Kirstie Lawton, Founder of Food for the Brain Foundation and a virtual brain health clinic in the UK focused on ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease) which in the UK is called “Motor Neurone Disease” (MND) This is a hot topic in the UK as there has been a flurry of cases and concern about MND in the professional rugby players community. In this podcast you will learn: Is there hope for MND / ALS and what role for nutrition? Lessons from delivering a completely virtual brain clinic How science and survival of MND / ALS is evolving Listen wherever you listen...

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Immune Resilience and COVID Truth show art Immune Resilience and COVID Truth

Evolution of Medicine Podcast

This week on Season 2, Episode 7 of the Evolution of Medicine, we take a deeper and more personal dive into immune resilience and the COVID vaccines, a topic that, five years later, continues to shape our work, our patients, and our health system. In the News: A UK Decision That Should Concern Everyone A recent report from the UK announced that public health authorities will not be releasing records that could clarify whether the COVID vaccines were associated with the rise in excess deaths. Their stated reason: It might create privacy issues and emotional distress for grieving families. ...

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Anderson Cooper & Sanjay Gupta Are Lying show art Anderson Cooper & Sanjay Gupta Are Lying

Evolution of Medicine Podcast

This week on the Evolution of Medicine podcast, we dive into a topic that weaves together many of the threads we’ve been exploring over the last few weeks. We’ve talked about AI and its rapid rise. We’ve talked about cognitive decline and the extraordinary possibility of reversing it. And we’ve talked about what it will take to get there on an individual practice level. But this week’s episode brings those themes together in a way I didn’t expect. A friend recently sent me what looked like a legitimate video commercial, featuring credible, household-name figures like Dr. Sanjay...

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The Primary Care Renaissance show art The Primary Care Renaissance

Evolution of Medicine Podcast

This week on the Evolution of Medicine podcast, we dive into one of the most exciting developments in healthcare – the Primary Care Renaissance. Starting January 1st, new legislation makes it easier than ever for both patients and employers to participate in Direct Primary Care (DPC). This shift could finally deliver on many of the promises we’ve been talking about for years – cutting out the middleman, reducing costs, lowering friction, and restoring the sacred doctor-patient relationship. We explore what this means for the future of medicine, and share insights from a powerful article...

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Grokipedia Deep Dive and More! show art Grokipedia Deep Dive and More!

Evolution of Medicine Podcast

Last week, I shared the differences in entries between Wikipedia and Grokipedia and why that shift represents a turning point for functional medicine. This week on The Evolution of Medicine Podcast, we take a deeper dive into Grokipedia: what it is, how it’s changing the landscape for practitioners, and why it might finally put to rest the old “pseudoscience” critiques. We also lighten things up with my favorite pharmaceutical commercial of all time – a hilarious rip-off that prescribes nature instead of pills. And in the Clinical Corner, we explore a fascinating new tool I found...

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Everyone's Brain Needs Primary Prevention show art Everyone's Brain Needs Primary Prevention

Evolution of Medicine Podcast

This week on the Evolution of Medicine Podcast, we dive into primary prevention – and why it’s the future of health. Dr. Eric Topol recently published an article lamenting medicine’s lack of progress in the big three killers: cardiovascular disease, cancer, and neurodegeneration. He’s right about the problem, but I’d argue he’s been going to the wrong conferences. If he had joined us at the Personalized Lifestyle Medicine Institute (PLMI) conference, he would have seen what real prevention looks like: clinicians reversing chronic disease through root-cause, systems-based care. And...

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More Episodes

What if health plans could cover in-home chef services to improve patient outcomes? In this episode, James Maskell sits down with Renata Jenik, founder of Foodom.com, to explore how her company is pioneering a powerful new model of food as medicine—one that’s already being covered by insurance.

Renata shares her personal journey from overwhelmed working mom struggling with PCOS and insulin resistance to entrepreneur with a mission to redefine healthcare through culinary empowerment. What started as a personal solution—hiring a chef to prepare healthy meals for her family—evolved into a scalable program now contracted by health plans like Anthem to serve Medicaid patients in Sacramento County.

Unlike traditional meal delivery, Foodom sends trained chefs into patients’ homes every two weeks to cook nourishing meals and teach basic culinary skills. It’s a powerful model rooted in sustainability and empowerment.

Tune in to learn about:

  • How a personal health crisis sparked a revolutionary business idea
  • Why health plans like Anthem are paying for in-home chef services
  • The key differences between meal delivery and chef-led culinary education
  • The challenges and solutions of scaling food-as-medicine at the community level
  • Why El Dorado County is emerging as a hub for healthspan innovation
  • And so much more!

If you're interested in the intersection of culinary care, health equity, and scalable functional medicine delivery, this is a must-listen.