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Hanna Bloomfield's bosses at the Department of Veterans Affairs had been reading a lot about the plant-based Mediterranean diet. Some highly publicized recent studies had shown that eating lots of fresh vegetables and olive oil along with maybe a splash of red wine could have tremendous health benefits, and they wondered whether it was something the VA, as an organization, should consider recommending to its more than 9 million patients. They tasked Bloomfield with figuring out whether this health effect was real — or simply hype. (Cha, 7/19)

Obese children who cut sugar from their diets saw improvements in markers of heart disease after just nine days, a study in Atherosclerosis found. For the study, researchers evaluated 37 children ages 9 to 18 who were obese and at high risk for heart disease and Type 2 diabetes. (Peachman, 7/19)

That’s according to data from the federal government, which says that breads, sugary drinks, pizza, pasta dishes and “dairy desserts” like ice cream are also among Americans’ top 10 sources of calories. What do these foods have in common? They are largely the products of seven crops and farm foods — corn, soybeans, wheat, rice, sorghum, milk and meat — that are heavily subsidized by the federal government, ensuring that junk foods are cheap and plentiful, experts say. (O'Connor, 7/19)

Babies who required extra nutrition just after birth used to rely on a formula made from cow’s milk. But now, hospitals are turning away from dairy in favor of food produced by their own species. University of Florida Health Jacksonville is among the first hospitals in Northeast Florida to offer donor milk or a human-milk-based concentrate, known as a fortifier, in both its newborn nursery and neonatal intensive care unit. (George, 7/19)