Balanced.org

Balanced is a public health and nutrition advocacy organization campaigning for healthier menus in schools, hospitals, and other critical institutions. We believe everyday people, communities, and organizations like ours have the power to transform the food system by encouraging institutions to improve the healthfulness of their menus and demanding change from the food industry. Unlike other organizations with similar goals, our focus is on systems change - not individual education. Balanced believes most people want to improve their lives by replacing the unhealthy foods in their diets, but because of the way our food system is designed and controlled by a number of major food companies, healthy eating is often impossible. We believe there are victims of our food system for whom only systems-level change will have an impact - people who have limited or no power over their food choices at all. Education alone is not sufficient for students with limited lunch options, patients in hospitals selecting from premade menus, or employees dependent on worksite cafeterias. For those people, and others, food environments have to be healthier. And that will require major improvements to our food system. Our advocacy work is rooted in leading nutrition science and the recommendations made by world-renowned healthcare organizations. We believe the food system and our community institutions have to support increased consumption of fruits, vegetables, plant-proteins, and whole grains and decreased consumption of disease-causing meat and egg products. Our agenda is simple: change menus, save lives.