Commonly consumed foods can be developed to enhance beneficial nutritional attributes, such as dietary fiber, a key nutrient linked to reduce chronic disease risk. The “food as health” approach of investing in improving the nutrient profile of plant- and animal-based commodities can lead to not only increases in farm profitability, reduced healthcare costs, but also save and extend human lives, we will use wheat as an example of a crop that is 20% of the global diet (by calories and protein), but also a major fiber source in the American diet the largest source of dietary fiber in the American diet. Given that most people fail to meet the adequate intake of dietary fiber, increasing wheat dietary fiber using natural variation, will help improve the diet quality of hundreds of millions of people. While impacts will depend on current fiber intakes, nutrition models forecast increasing dietary fiber in wheat by X grams could reduce global risk of cardiovascular disease risk by 3%%, type 2 diabetes 3-4.5%, and gut cancer by 1.75%– nationally and globally. In this presentation, we will discuss how plant breeding can increase the dietary fiber in wheat-based foods, how higher fiber wheat will flow through the value chain from “farm to fork” and how current fiber intakes are impacted by consumer knowledge on identifying fiber-rich foods and how more nutritious commodities and foods can help achieve higher intakes We will discuss how incentives to grow higher fiber wheat can be easily paid for by savings in health care. This comprehensive approach will describe an important aspect of the crops and healthcare research and policy needs of the future.