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Melina Shannon-DiPietro

Melina Shannon-DiPietro - Melina Shannon-DiPietro is the director of the Yale Sustainable Food Project, which oversees sustainable dining at Yale, manages an organic farm on campus, and runs programs that support academic inquiry related to food and agriculture. More

Melina Shannon-DiPietro is an organic farmer turned executive director. In 2003 she traded in her stirrup hoe for a laptop and joined Yale to help found the Sustainable Food Project. For the past seven years, she has worked with colleagues, faculty, and students to create meaningful opportunities for college students in food, agriculture, and sustainability. Her biggest compliment came last year, when a student called her Yale's Dean of Food.

Doctors Vote for Organic Food

By Melina Shannon-DiPietro
Jun 23 2009, 8:25 AM ET Comment



You probably had the same experience I did last Tuesday. There was one piece of news on the radio: President Obama was in Chicago asking the nation's doctors for their help on health care.

What you probably didn't hear, and I just got wind of recently, was that at that same conference, the American Medical Association approved a groundbreaking policy resolution. The AMA took action on sustainable food and farming and came out in support of practices and policies within health care systems that promote and model an ecologically sustainable food system.

The new AMA policy states:

    • That the AMA support[s] practices and policies in medical schools, hospitals, and other health care facilities that support and model a healthy and ecologically sustainable food system, which provides food and beverages of naturally high nutritional quality.

    • That the AMA encourage[s] the development of a healthier food system through the U.S. Farm Bill and other federal legislation.

    • That the AMA consider[s] working with other health care and public health organizations to educate the health care community and the public about the importance of healthy and ecologically sustainable food systems.

So, give the AMA a round of applause, and next time you're in for a check-up, talk this move up to your doctor: Urge her or him to get on board for building a better food system.

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