Food and medicine: A continuum in the USA versus separate categories in France September 16, 2025

Abstract

We claim that for the French, food and medicine are distinct categories, sold in separate stores, and that there is French resistance to acceptance of entities like functional food that blur the sharp food-medicine distinction. We claim that for Americans foods and medicines are on a continuum. We provide evidence from four sources. 1. French and American laws about retailing of foods and medicines and regulatory policy; 2. Multiple choice and open-ended survey responses; 3. Frequencies of words that blur the food-medicine distinction, such as functional foods; 4. Sales data, under the heading of “food, health and wellness” that blur the food-medicine distinction. We suggest that one reason for this difference is that the French consider of food as an almost sacred category, not to be breached. We find the historical record suggests what the long term origins of this French-American difference may have been. We also suggest that the recent American initiative promoting the idea that “food is medicine” may limit the pleasure of eating and the meanings of food.