IINsider’s Digest: Doctors in the Kitchen, Addictive Eating, and Chemical-Fed Chicken

The IINsider’s Digest gathers all the hottest nutrition topics around the web in one place for your reading pleasure. This week, one study exposes factory farming issues, another compares compulsive behavior between food and drugs, and doctors are learning to heal through healthy cooking.

Doctors Learn to Cook Healthy, ‘Crave-able’ Foods
NY Times

Dr. Eisenberg is the founder and chief officiant of “Healthy Kitchens/Healthy Lives,” an “‘interfaith marriage,” as he calls it, among physicians, public health researchers and distinguished chefs that seeks to tear down the firewall between “healthy” and “ crave-able” cuisine. Although physicians are on the front lines of the nation’s diabetes and obesity crises, many graduate from medical school with little knowledge of nutrition, let alone cooking.

Can Food Really Be Addictive? Yes, Says National Drug Expert
TIME Healthland

Can food really be as addictive as drugs? Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, made the case that the answer is yes and that understanding the commonalities between food and drug addictions could offer insights into all types of compulsive behavior.

Arsenic in Our Chicken?
NY Times

Two scientific studies suggesting that poultry on factory farms are routinely fed banned antibiotics and other chemicals raise serious questions.

Why Shift Work and Sleeplessness Lead to Weight Gain and Diabetes
TIME Healthland

Studies show that shift work and other sleep disturbances like jet lag can disrupt your body clock and increase the risks of obesity and diabetes. But, until now, researchers haven’t really been sure exactly how these changes affect the body’s metabolism.

Advice for Diet Soda Lovers: Skip The Chips
NPR

Got a Diet Coke or Diet Pepsi habit? Lots of Americans do. Consumption of all types of diet soft drinks has been on the rise. And as a nation, we drink an estimated 20 percent more of diet drinks now than we did 15 years ago.

Antibiotics for Livestock Will Require Prescription, FDA Says
NY Times

Farmers and ranchers will for the first time be required to get a prescription from a veterinarian before using antibiotics in cattle, pigs, chickens and other animals, federal food regulators announced on Wednesday. Officials hope the move will slow the indiscriminate use of the drugs, which has made them increasingly ineffective in humans.