Balanced is a network of public health professionals, nutrition science experts, and everyday people from around the world fighting for a healthier food system one menu at a time.
We've made it our mission to hold the food industry accountable, help restore balance to institutional food environments, and make healthier eating easier and more realistic for people everywhere.
OUR VALUES
We believe in order for our vision of a healthier, more balanced food system to become a reality, our work must be driven by and connected to our core values.
COURAGE
We embrace the challenges of creating widespread change and approach our work with courage and boldness. We’re unafraid to speak up against powerful systems and we challenge conventional ways of doing things. We take risks, design innovative solutions, and lead with our values.
FAMILY &
COMMUNITY
Healthy families and communities are the heart of our mission. We are inspired by the people we love, and we believe everyone deserves healthier foods in all the places we live, work, play, learn, and heal.
HEALTH
We believe a food system that prioritizes health is possible and we work tirelessly to demand better from the companies that feed our families. We believe everyone deserves to live free from the burdens of our country’s leading cause of disease, disability, and premature death: an unhealthy food system.
EMPOWERMENT
We believe the solution to our unhealthy food system is empowered communities. Our goal is to provide support, resources, and amplification to campaigns and advocacy across the country.
ACCOUNTABILITY
We demand better from the food industry and community institutions that serve our families. We believe companies and institutions have both the opportunity - and responsibilIty - to put our health ahead of their bottom line, and we hold them accountable for their role in our country’s diet-related public health crisis. We reject the food industry’s narrative of personal choice and challenge industry leaders to improve the food environments in schools, hospitals, and other critical institutions.
OUR HISTORY
Shocked by skyrocketing rates of diet-related disease(s) - especially in children - and fed up by the food industry's dangerous predatory tactics, educator and mom Audrey Lawson-Sanchez founded Balanced to make healthy eating easier and more realistic for children and families everywhere.
Balanced has become a leading voice in the fight for a healthier food system, with its vast network of advocates speaking up against Big Food's influence and championing healthier food environments in schools, hospitals, universities, offices, and other critical community institutions.
Balanced's community-led campaigns and institutional support programs have influenced nutrition policy in schools, hospitals, and offices in cities around the world, impacting the healthfulness of millions of meals annually (and we're just getting started).
OUR GOAL
As optimists, our team is committed to radically transforming the food system as quickly as possible. As realists, we know large-scale change doesn't happen overnight - and it rarely happens alone. That's why our goal is to help institutions of all types commit to bold (but realistic) menu changes that have major impact.
BALANCED MENUS
INCREASE
fiber | nutrients | protein diversity
DECREASE
cholesterol | saturated fat | sodium | sugar
By replacing at least 20% of the least healthy, known disease-causing foods with nutrient-dense, health-promoting alternatives, institutions across the world are demonstrating their commitment to consumer health as well as saving money and increasing customer satisfaction.
OUR TEAM
Audrey Lawson-Sanchez
Founder, Executive Director
Andrea Jacobson
Manager, Advocacy
Sarah Landman
Specialist, Advocacy
Madeline Bennett
Manager, Institutional Support
Ada Sanchez
Unofficial (but enthusiastic) Ambassador
WANT TO BE PART OF TEAM BALANCED?
There are no job openings at this time, but you're welcome to complete a general interest application and we'll reach out when positions are posted.
Michael Greger, M.D. FACLM
Michelle McMacken, MD
Matt Ruscigno, MPH, RD
Juliana Hever, MS, RD, CPT,
Marco Borges
Dreena Burton
Robert J. Ostfeld, MD, MS
Andrew M. Freeman MD, FACC, FACP
Pamela Fergusson, RD, PhD
Joel Khan, MD
Reshma Shah, MD
Eliza Mellion, MS, RDN
Sabina Vyas, MPH
Ruby Lathon, PhD
Dr. Mauricio Gonzalez
Rick Weissinger, MS, RD
Allan E. Kornberg, MD, MBA
Asha Subramania, MD