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The Big Fat Surprise: Why Butter, Meat and Cheese Belong in a Healthy Diet
In The Big Fat Surprise, investigative journalist Nina Teicholz reveals the unthinkable: that everything we thought we knew about dietary fat is wrong. She documents how the low-fat nutrition advice of the past sixty years has amounted to a vast uncontrolled experiment on the entire population, with disastrous consequences for our health.
For decades, we have been told that the best possible diet involves cutting back on fat, especially saturated fat, and that if we are not getting healthier or thinner it must be because we are not trying hard enough. But what if the low-fat diet is itself the problem? What if the very foods we’ve been denying ourselves—the creamy cheeses, the sizzling steaks—are themselves the key to reversing the epidemics of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease?
In this captivating, vibrant, and convincing narrative, based on a nine-year-long investigation, Teicholz shows how the misinformation about saturated fats took hold in the scientific community and the public imagination, and how recent findings have overturned these beliefs. She explains why the Mediterranean Diet is not the healthiest, and how we might be replacing trans fats with something even worse. This startling history demonstrates how nutrition science has gotten it so wrong: how overzealous researchers, through a combination of ego, bias, and premature institutional consensus, have allowed dangerous misrepresentations to become dietary dogma.
With eye-opening scientific rigor, The Big Fat Surprise upends the conventional wisdom about all fats with the groundbreaking claim that more, not less, dietary fat—including saturated fat—is what leads to better health and wellness. Science shows that we have been needlessly avoiding meat, cheese, whole milk, and eggs for decades and that we can now, guilt-free, welcome these delicious foods back into our lives.
For decades, we have been told that the best possible diet involves cutting back on fat, especially saturated fat, and that if we are not getting healthier or thinner it must be because we are not trying hard enough. But what if the low-fat diet is itself the problem? What if the very foods we’ve been denying ourselves—the creamy cheeses, the sizzling steaks—are themselves the key to reversing the epidemics of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease?
In this captivating, vibrant, and convincing narrative, based on a nine-year-long investigation, Teicholz shows how the misinformation about saturated fats took hold in the scientific community and the public imagination, and how recent findings have overturned these beliefs. She explains why the Mediterranean Diet is not the healthiest, and how we might be replacing trans fats with something even worse. This startling history demonstrates how nutrition science has gotten it so wrong: how overzealous researchers, through a combination of ego, bias, and premature institutional consensus, have allowed dangerous misrepresentations to become dietary dogma.
With eye-opening scientific rigor, The Big Fat Surprise upends the conventional wisdom about all fats with the groundbreaking claim that more, not less, dietary fat—including saturated fat—is what leads to better health and wellness. Science shows that we have been needlessly avoiding meat, cheese, whole milk, and eggs for decades and that we can now, guilt-free, welcome these delicious foods back into our lives.
496 pages, Hardcover
First published May 13, 2014
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September 8, 2016
I start this review with a disclaimer: I am a registered dietitian, the "nutritionist" profession that Teicholz spends 336 pages discrediting, berating, and I'd go so far as to say vilifying. It was a little hard not to take it personally after the umpteenth snide comment dripping with condescension.
With that being said, Teicholz does not miss the mark entirely, and there are many reasons to praise this book. The research, though problematic at times (we'll get to that), is thorough, and for a book that is literally comprised of 300+ pages of scientific review, Teicholz does an impeccable job of keeping the reader focused and engaged. She has made nutrition research accessible to the masses, only getting bogged down in complicated (but necessary) physiological and chemical processes a small handful of times.
She's also not wrong: Keys' research on saturated fats and heart disease WAS flawed; low fat diets ARE absurd; trans fats, interesterified oils, and vegetable oils ARE harmful; and sugar DOES need to be taken seriously as a threat to human health.
But I found myself, page after page, becoming extremely frustrated by Teicholz' arguments. This book, though lengthy, is an oversimplification of the issue at hand, and before you pick up her book and your plate of bacon, you might want to consider these points:
(1) Teicholz does an excellent job of proving that a low fat diet is misguided. She also does a good job of explaining why many of the OILS in our diet are worse for our health than butter. But these are not the fats I recommend to clients. What about avocados, nuts, seeds, and whole olives? What about these foods, whole foods, unprocessed foods -- and yes, vegetarian foods -- which naturally contain UNsaturated fats (monounsaturated or omega-3 polyunsaturated, mostly)? She never mentions those. THESE are the ones I encourage my clients to eat. I agree that omega-6 rich vegetable oils are inflammatory. I agree that deep frying in them is an issue (though I would argue that deep fried ANYTHING should not be a staple in your diet). I agree that butter is healthier than margarine. But she doesn't prove that a moderate-high fat diet comprised mostly of saturated fats is superior to a moderate-high fat diet comprised of whole food sources of unsaturated fats (avocados, nuts, seeds, and whole olives). In fact, she never even mentions them at all.
(2) Teicholz mistakenly conflates vegetarianism/veganism with low-fat, when in fact, when I plan diet recommendations for my vegetarian and vegan clients, they wind up being HIGHER in fat than many omnivorous diets. This is because to get adequate protein on a vegetarian/vegan diet, you tend to rely on foods that come packaged with fat: nuts, seeds, and cheese for vegetarians all provide more fat than they do protein (cheese is usually pretty equally distributed). Again, Teicholz never assesses a moderate-high fat vegetarian or vegan diet, neither proving nor disproving its comparability to her much-beloved high fat omnivorous diet.
(3) Just because the Inuits thrive on a diet almost exclusively comprised of animal fats, or Pacific Islanders fare better with native coconut oil (highly saturated) than Western vegetable oils or olive oil or what-have-you, does not mean that everyone will. This is shaky territory, but emerging research is leaning toward the concept of genetics, epigenetics, and environment playing integral roles on how an INDIVIDUAL human being uniquely digests, absorbs, and utilizes the nutrients and food ingested. Case studies of traditional cultures can be useful, but extrapolating sweeping generalizations from them and applying them on a global scale is not only flawed, but downright inappropriate.
(4) This book does not distinguish between types of carbohydrates. If you're going to devote an entire book, and a very sizable one at that, to proving that a specific type of dietary fat is healthful while other specific types of dietary fats are harmful, how can you group ALL carbohydrates into one bucket of doom and disaster? Are you really telling me that fruits and vegetables are wreaking as much havoc on public health as refined sugar and white flour? Seriously? I wouldn't recommend anyone take notes from The Banana Girl who claims to live like a monkey and subsist almost exclusively on an absurd amount of bananas every day, but you can't make the argument that the landscape of dietary fats is riddled with nuances yet that of dietary carbohydrates is not.
(5) The saturated fats in bacon and sausage may not be an issue, but saturated fats are not the only component of processed meats. To assert that these highly processed meats, full of preservatives, low grade meat, and additives are boons to the health industry simply because they contain saturated fats is ridiculous. Research is pretty clear on their ties to certain cancers, and it's not the saturated fats that researchers worry about. It's the other components that come bundled up with the saturated fat. So even if you decide to go from low fat milk to whole or ditch margarine for good, old-fashioned butter...maybe don't go hog-wild on the processed meats just yet, ok? Please?
And I would be remiss if I didn't point out the hundreds of clients I have seen who at some point tried Atkins, and it "worked," until they couldn't do it anymore...because our bodies are hard-wired to function on some amount of carbohydrates, and feeling shaky, irritable, foggy, dizzy, and downright hangry all the time led them to a carbohydrate binge. They lost weight...at first. And then gained it all back and more. There are three macronutrients for a reason. We're meant to eat all three. Maybe we'd fare better eating MORE fat and LESS carbohydrates, but all-or-nothing on either end doesn't work for the majority of people.
There is no single problem with the "state of affairs" today. Is low-fat part of it? Yes. Is high sugar intake? Absolutely. But we have to think bigger than micro- and macronutrients. We're disconnected from our food. We've outsourced cooking from our own kitchens to restaurants and food manufacturing factories. We aren't really even eating food anymore, half the time, just somewhat edible food-like...stuff. Our palates have been distorted by hyperpalatability. We view cooking and eating as inconveniences. We mindlessly munch while constantly distracted by electronic screens. We're not moving our bodies. We're not sleeping. We're over-committed and stressed. The health of Western society cannot be cured by replacing an apple or a tomato with a big steak and a side of sausage.
Teicholz delivers her message with incredible zeal, and it's easy to get swept up in someone else's passion and persuasion. I get it; there were a great many moments where I was right there with her. I'm happy to have read the book and applaud her for taking a stab at such a scientific behemoth, but please don't take her words as dogma. I worry that her message will manifest itself in gross distrust of all health professionals, especially nutritionists, and I've worked hard to give my clients the most accurate recommendations possible. I've spent many years in school and the ensuing years reading research and exposing myself to a variety of viewpoints to try to parse out the truth from the corruption and bias. There are some sheep in the dietitian world who live and die by the sword of governmental dietary recommendations and brainwashing by BigAg, but we aren't all like that, I promise.
In the end, make this one book you read out of many on the subject. Look into the research she references. Expose yourself to opposing views. Listen to your own body and how you feel when you eat various foods. Nutrition is a relatively new science and there's a lot we don't know because there's a lot we don't understand about the human body. Teicholz MAY be 100% right. She MAY be completely off base.
More than likely, though, as with most things in life, the truth lies somewhere in the uncomfortable, messy grey area between those two extremes.
With that being said, Teicholz does not miss the mark entirely, and there are many reasons to praise this book. The research, though problematic at times (we'll get to that), is thorough, and for a book that is literally comprised of 300+ pages of scientific review, Teicholz does an impeccable job of keeping the reader focused and engaged. She has made nutrition research accessible to the masses, only getting bogged down in complicated (but necessary) physiological and chemical processes a small handful of times.
She's also not wrong: Keys' research on saturated fats and heart disease WAS flawed; low fat diets ARE absurd; trans fats, interesterified oils, and vegetable oils ARE harmful; and sugar DOES need to be taken seriously as a threat to human health.
But I found myself, page after page, becoming extremely frustrated by Teicholz' arguments. This book, though lengthy, is an oversimplification of the issue at hand, and before you pick up her book and your plate of bacon, you might want to consider these points:
(1) Teicholz does an excellent job of proving that a low fat diet is misguided. She also does a good job of explaining why many of the OILS in our diet are worse for our health than butter. But these are not the fats I recommend to clients. What about avocados, nuts, seeds, and whole olives? What about these foods, whole foods, unprocessed foods -- and yes, vegetarian foods -- which naturally contain UNsaturated fats (monounsaturated or omega-3 polyunsaturated, mostly)? She never mentions those. THESE are the ones I encourage my clients to eat. I agree that omega-6 rich vegetable oils are inflammatory. I agree that deep frying in them is an issue (though I would argue that deep fried ANYTHING should not be a staple in your diet). I agree that butter is healthier than margarine. But she doesn't prove that a moderate-high fat diet comprised mostly of saturated fats is superior to a moderate-high fat diet comprised of whole food sources of unsaturated fats (avocados, nuts, seeds, and whole olives). In fact, she never even mentions them at all.
(2) Teicholz mistakenly conflates vegetarianism/veganism with low-fat, when in fact, when I plan diet recommendations for my vegetarian and vegan clients, they wind up being HIGHER in fat than many omnivorous diets. This is because to get adequate protein on a vegetarian/vegan diet, you tend to rely on foods that come packaged with fat: nuts, seeds, and cheese for vegetarians all provide more fat than they do protein (cheese is usually pretty equally distributed). Again, Teicholz never assesses a moderate-high fat vegetarian or vegan diet, neither proving nor disproving its comparability to her much-beloved high fat omnivorous diet.
(3) Just because the Inuits thrive on a diet almost exclusively comprised of animal fats, or Pacific Islanders fare better with native coconut oil (highly saturated) than Western vegetable oils or olive oil or what-have-you, does not mean that everyone will. This is shaky territory, but emerging research is leaning toward the concept of genetics, epigenetics, and environment playing integral roles on how an INDIVIDUAL human being uniquely digests, absorbs, and utilizes the nutrients and food ingested. Case studies of traditional cultures can be useful, but extrapolating sweeping generalizations from them and applying them on a global scale is not only flawed, but downright inappropriate.
(4) This book does not distinguish between types of carbohydrates. If you're going to devote an entire book, and a very sizable one at that, to proving that a specific type of dietary fat is healthful while other specific types of dietary fats are harmful, how can you group ALL carbohydrates into one bucket of doom and disaster? Are you really telling me that fruits and vegetables are wreaking as much havoc on public health as refined sugar and white flour? Seriously? I wouldn't recommend anyone take notes from The Banana Girl who claims to live like a monkey and subsist almost exclusively on an absurd amount of bananas every day, but you can't make the argument that the landscape of dietary fats is riddled with nuances yet that of dietary carbohydrates is not.
(5) The saturated fats in bacon and sausage may not be an issue, but saturated fats are not the only component of processed meats. To assert that these highly processed meats, full of preservatives, low grade meat, and additives are boons to the health industry simply because they contain saturated fats is ridiculous. Research is pretty clear on their ties to certain cancers, and it's not the saturated fats that researchers worry about. It's the other components that come bundled up with the saturated fat. So even if you decide to go from low fat milk to whole or ditch margarine for good, old-fashioned butter...maybe don't go hog-wild on the processed meats just yet, ok? Please?
And I would be remiss if I didn't point out the hundreds of clients I have seen who at some point tried Atkins, and it "worked," until they couldn't do it anymore...because our bodies are hard-wired to function on some amount of carbohydrates, and feeling shaky, irritable, foggy, dizzy, and downright hangry all the time led them to a carbohydrate binge. They lost weight...at first. And then gained it all back and more. There are three macronutrients for a reason. We're meant to eat all three. Maybe we'd fare better eating MORE fat and LESS carbohydrates, but all-or-nothing on either end doesn't work for the majority of people.
There is no single problem with the "state of affairs" today. Is low-fat part of it? Yes. Is high sugar intake? Absolutely. But we have to think bigger than micro- and macronutrients. We're disconnected from our food. We've outsourced cooking from our own kitchens to restaurants and food manufacturing factories. We aren't really even eating food anymore, half the time, just somewhat edible food-like...stuff. Our palates have been distorted by hyperpalatability. We view cooking and eating as inconveniences. We mindlessly munch while constantly distracted by electronic screens. We're not moving our bodies. We're not sleeping. We're over-committed and stressed. The health of Western society cannot be cured by replacing an apple or a tomato with a big steak and a side of sausage.
Teicholz delivers her message with incredible zeal, and it's easy to get swept up in someone else's passion and persuasion. I get it; there were a great many moments where I was right there with her. I'm happy to have read the book and applaud her for taking a stab at such a scientific behemoth, but please don't take her words as dogma. I worry that her message will manifest itself in gross distrust of all health professionals, especially nutritionists, and I've worked hard to give my clients the most accurate recommendations possible. I've spent many years in school and the ensuing years reading research and exposing myself to a variety of viewpoints to try to parse out the truth from the corruption and bias. There are some sheep in the dietitian world who live and die by the sword of governmental dietary recommendations and brainwashing by BigAg, but we aren't all like that, I promise.
In the end, make this one book you read out of many on the subject. Look into the research she references. Expose yourself to opposing views. Listen to your own body and how you feel when you eat various foods. Nutrition is a relatively new science and there's a lot we don't know because there's a lot we don't understand about the human body. Teicholz MAY be 100% right. She MAY be completely off base.
More than likely, though, as with most things in life, the truth lies somewhere in the uncomfortable, messy grey area between those two extremes.
November 9, 2015
*** Original review on June, 2014, after the first read
For two years now, I have been in the camp of Ornish and Essylstne on nearly zero-fat vegan diet. I had been diligent and scrupulous in my diet and exercise, toeing the line from my previous education in biostatistics, also inspired by vegan converts such as Bill Clinton. My overall health has improved significantly, but the reasons may not be what I thought.
Suffice to say that I have come to this book with a critical mind to examine the statistical evidences of how we are taught that fat is bad for CHD and health in general. Fortunately I have read several books previously to prepare me in basic human metabolic process: how insulin works, ghrelin, leptin, lipolysis, lipogenesis, diabetes type I and II, metabolic syndrome, inflammation, gluten and gliadin, metabolic pathways of glucose and fructose, visceral adiposity, as well as ketogenic diet treatment for epilepsy, etc. Without such preparation, I may have unduly ignored this book just as I had toward Gary Taubes’ book merely a few months ago.
One of the basic tenet of scientific discovery is to formulate hypothesis, gathering and analyzing evidences, then confirm or refute the said hypothesis. It was supposed to be an engaged but disinterested process to discover what can not be accounted as random chance. That was how I was taught in my graduate studies in statistics and biostatistics, particularly in the HSPH. How much I did not appreciate is that, scientists, medical researchers, epidemiologists and doctors are human who are motivated and shaped by their own egoistic needs to make a mark. With a “hunch”, added the zealous pursue for fame and recognition, even political power, much of the scientific process of nutritional guidance is a dismaying disaster for the public. No villain, just starting out by anxious good guys trying to address a public panic.
A few factors have created this perfect storm raging over the last thirty years in US. A President’s heart-attack, a researcher’s oversized zeal and energy (Ancel Keys), a government plodded to find a solution by the panic-stricken public, and a media and press withholding their journalistic critical thinking, all created the initial “locked-in” policy-making wheel toward low-fat diet. With a charismatic “great man” in Keys, innocuous data selection biases, skewed funding and academic career-making, the US becomes a land of fear and loathing for fat, particularly the saturated kind. All based on several links of plausible logic which were never properly verified and now nearly in complete disputes: serum cholesterol leads to heart disease, dietary saturated fat leads to serum cholesterol and body fat. Only recently I was able to understand such links are highly improbably given human metabolic process and clinical trials. Only because I was curious to read something sounded so “wrong” from my years’ hearing of the official mantra. I am not alone in the mantra; even the smartest and most resourceful people still adhere to that mantra.
Synaptic connections make two generations of Americans instinctively flinch from the sight of lard, butter, and coconut oil. The emotional short-cut of “what you eat is what you are” making the public in constant fear and loathing of bodily fat, while deeply unsatisfied by the governmental sanctioned food.
Interestingly, the Big Food does not come too badly in the overall drama. By their profit-maximizing imperative, strongly goaded by government and interest groups, they had to make worse and worse changes in their product lines: replacing saturated fat by trans fat, replacing trans fat by sugar. They are secondary players, while the center podium is AHA, NIH, and USDA, big minds with big guns.
It would be all too easy to pick a polemic position to write this book, which is likely to be counterproductive for readers such me. I had been taken on the “fat is bad” for too long; it has become an article of faith, and a knee-jerking reaction to defend. Yet the author took the more difficult road to painstakingly survey all the evidences to see if the case by the majority case hold. One case after another, from the original epidemiological studies to the failures of large scale clinical trails, the author comes to the inevitable and inconvenient conclusion that we were on a wrong path, and wrong for a long time, even with the valiant resistance of a minority of researchers, and a few critical-minded journalist such as Gary Taubes. I recall the fanfare greeted last year on the success of the Mediterranean Diet, now the culture and scientific background of this “D” diet comes to much paler light.
Even all the evidence, there is reasonable doubt against all the “diet-heart theory” against fat. Now the tide is turning toward sugar, refined carbohydrates, wheat product, grain in general, and the overall amount of carbohydrate in the diet including starchy vegetables and fruit.
This book reflects the state of affairs of the low-carb vs. low-fat battle. Of course long-term data would add our knowledge, but the balance is definitely tilted against the old conventional wisdom. As for me, a watershed moment to reflect on my own instinctual reaction and selection bias in this field.
*** Commentary after 16 months
After reading this book in June 2014, I went into several weeks of research. Ms Teicholz is correct. The current conventional and mainstream nutritional advices are much to be doubted, both (a) describing the impact of nutritional choices relating to health and fitness in the general and specific populations (2) the prescribing policies on linking health outcome with nutritional choices.
Billions of dollars of research and generations of human intelligence went awry by the very few critical forks in the paths. We wanted the simple, clean, convincing answers so badly, so here we have two generations of human instinctively linking "healthy eating = fruit and vegetables; bad eating = fat and meat".
I have nothing to revise my previous review. My own change of dietary habit changed completely because of this book. Except to say that I am very glad to have read this book, I will not invoke the usual opprobrium by talking about one single person's experience. I am a trained statistician after all.
Watching the recent months' news flow, the major organizations are doing multi-triangle turns. First the sugar gets all the blame (but not the high sugar natural fruit juices), then it is the nuances of different fat ("we recommended lower certain type of fat, not all types of fat"). Except northern european countries, US, UK and the likes are still doing damage-control instead of revamping the whole process from scratch. Some mistakes are just too much to admit aloud.
June 26, 2014
This book has turned my world upside down. Since my dad was diagnosed with high cholesterol in his 40s, and his sister and I vied for highest cholesterol counts in the tristate area, the family went low-fat. At that time, low-fat was horrible tasting. Horrible. All the joy was sucked out of eating.
Now comes Nina Teicholz to review the data, all the data, and expose the low-fat lie. I am so disappointed in every cholesterol/heart disease guru who pushed this regimen, every doctor I have seen in the last 30 years, all the so-called scientists who quashed the data of an opposing view.
I apologize to all the Atkins followers that I tsk tsk'd. Of course my cholesterol wouldn't go down with diet alone and expensive statin drugs have been part of my life since they were available. Don't even get me started on the "sand" I took for years before that. I am going out for a big juicy steak with a nice compound butter on top. And I won't cut out vegetables, because I like vegetables. But I shall have real butter on them. And perhaps some cheese. Real cheese. And a low-sugar pie with a delicious, flaky crust made with lard. If I drank coffee, I would have it with real cream.
Now comes Nina Teicholz to review the data, all the data, and expose the low-fat lie. I am so disappointed in every cholesterol/heart disease guru who pushed this regimen, every doctor I have seen in the last 30 years, all the so-called scientists who quashed the data of an opposing view.
I apologize to all the Atkins followers that I tsk tsk'd. Of course my cholesterol wouldn't go down with diet alone and expensive statin drugs have been part of my life since they were available. Don't even get me started on the "sand" I took for years before that. I am going out for a big juicy steak with a nice compound butter on top. And I won't cut out vegetables, because I like vegetables. But I shall have real butter on them. And perhaps some cheese. Real cheese. And a low-sugar pie with a delicious, flaky crust made with lard. If I drank coffee, I would have it with real cream.
February 25, 2016
If you're thinking about going Paleo and are looking for evidence to support that decision, this is the book for you. If you're skeptical about the benefits of an animal-based diet, you probably won't appreciate it so much.
May 4, 2016
The author's subtitle and conclusion are an incredible leap from the information she presents. She says heart disease is more complicated than sat fat, fat, or cholesterol, and refined carbs seem pretty harmful. She failed to present a single point of evidence on "why butter, meat and cheese belong in a healthy diet" -- and I don't mean "a piece that I accepted as evidence," I mean literally not one single item explicitly in favor of eating animals, just evidence suggesting that fat isn't bad and refined carbs are, and leaping to "so we need to eat more animal products" from there, as though fruits, nuts, seeds, fruit oils, vegetables and legumes don't exist (or perhaps both lumping them in with cupcakes as "carbs" and assuming "carbs" = "refined grains and sugar").
She also painted a picture of the influence of food industry interests without mentioning the animal agriculture industry, the most powerful food advertisers and lobbyists, which is untruthful, and multiple times she cherry picked and cited epidemiological associations or one-off trials or anecdotes, which she lambasted at other times for those shortcomings when they suggested a result that didn't fit her view. This is very poor scientific methodology.
She concludes with, and I quote, "... a beet salad with a fruit smoothie for lunch is ultimately less healthy for your waistline and your heart than a plate of eggs fried in butter." Why? How did you get there from a conclusion that saturated fat is not bad and refined carb foods are? She further entirely ignores the mounting wealth of science on whole-food plant-based nutrition, which she must have known about when writing this in 2014. Why ignore it all, why present only evidence comparing animal products to refined grains, sugar, and vegetable oil and hydrogenated oils?
All around disappointing and ultimately very misleading.
She also painted a picture of the influence of food industry interests without mentioning the animal agriculture industry, the most powerful food advertisers and lobbyists, which is untruthful, and multiple times she cherry picked and cited epidemiological associations or one-off trials or anecdotes, which she lambasted at other times for those shortcomings when they suggested a result that didn't fit her view. This is very poor scientific methodology.
She concludes with, and I quote, "... a beet salad with a fruit smoothie for lunch is ultimately less healthy for your waistline and your heart than a plate of eggs fried in butter." Why? How did you get there from a conclusion that saturated fat is not bad and refined carb foods are? She further entirely ignores the mounting wealth of science on whole-food plant-based nutrition, which she must have known about when writing this in 2014. Why ignore it all, why present only evidence comparing animal products to refined grains, sugar, and vegetable oil and hydrogenated oils?
All around disappointing and ultimately very misleading.
July 28, 2018
Good book that points out the importance of a balanced diet and essential fats as a part of it.
Saturated fats are not bad and if you do not consume them with carbohydrates, you will be doing good to yourself. This was the point that led the scientific community in the wrong direction in the 50s, thanks to Ancel Key`s (nutritionist) prejudice and press support on the cholesterol hypothesis.
Saturated fats are not bad and if you do not consume them with carbohydrates, you will be doing good to yourself. This was the point that led the scientific community in the wrong direction in the 50s, thanks to Ancel Key`s (nutritionist) prejudice and press support on the cholesterol hypothesis.
May 12, 2014
This is an excellent book! Nina Teicholz digs deep to uncover the truth about nutrition as we've known it for 60 years revealing how fats aren't the bad guy.
What I liked the most about this book was that it was confirmation of what I have learned on my own experiment, party of one, me. I've always been a student of healthy eating. When the low fat/high carb recommendations came out, I was right there. No fat? Even better. What did that get me? A big butt.
Several years ago, I stumbled up on the Paleo lifestyle and after having removed the grains and carbs from my diet and added back meat and fats, I am the healthiest I've ever been.
I have worked with the American Heart Association over the past several years and, although I admire what they are trying to achieve especially regarding women's heart health, I was never in agreement with their nutritional suggestions.
Thank you for this book, Ms. Teicholz! I hope more people will understand, after reading it, how to be healthier. :-)
What I liked the most about this book was that it was confirmation of what I have learned on my own experiment, party of one, me. I've always been a student of healthy eating. When the low fat/high carb recommendations came out, I was right there. No fat? Even better. What did that get me? A big butt.
Several years ago, I stumbled up on the Paleo lifestyle and after having removed the grains and carbs from my diet and added back meat and fats, I am the healthiest I've ever been.
I have worked with the American Heart Association over the past several years and, although I admire what they are trying to achieve especially regarding women's heart health, I was never in agreement with their nutritional suggestions.
Thank you for this book, Ms. Teicholz! I hope more people will understand, after reading it, how to be healthier. :-)
February 13, 2022
Update, 2022: This has turned out to be a surprisingly controversial review. Please see comment stream below for interesting discussions.
Original review, 2018:
This is un updated and more accessible version of the story told in Good Calories, Bad Calories: Challenging the Conventional Wisdom on Diet, Weight Control, and Disease. It was worth hearing all this again because the conventional wisdom is so pervasive that one needs to be reminded about the actual evidence. The author does a good job going over specific studies to illustrate why the prevailing low-fat dogma is wrong.
Nerd addendum:
To fact-check, I looked up one of these papers--a trial in Israel of low-fat vs. Mediterranean vs. low-carb diets. The article says what the author says it does, i.e. the low-carb group did better than the other two. If anything, she undersold it because the low-carb diet did not have a calorie restriction whereas the other two did!
One thing that did irritate me about the book is the incessant bashing of epidemiology. The examples of "diet-heart" studies that she covers constitute a veritable catalog of methodological errors. The issue isn't that Keys & co. were doing epidemiology--the issue is that they were doing bad science. As the author mentions correctly, we know about the link between cancer and smoking and have saved millions of lives because of epidemiology. Thus the book could have been an opportunity to explain what good epidemiology is and how one determines causation from observational studies, instead of repeating dangerously oversimplified shibboleths about correlation and causation. Of course, by itself, a spurious correlation from a lousy study does not prove causation. But a real correlation is evidence of causation, and along with some other epidemiological criteria can provide actionable proof of cause. I'm not a writer and realize it is not easy to explain these things, but we've got to figure out how to move beyond the poles of blind faith in expert dogma on the one hand and nihilistic truth-bashing on the other. There is a just middle of weighing the best available evidence. Reality exists.
Some books on epidemiology:
Investigating Disease Patterns: The Science of Epidemiology
Designing Clinical Research
Clinical Epidemiology: The Essentials
Gordis Epidemiology
Original review, 2018:
This is un updated and more accessible version of the story told in Good Calories, Bad Calories: Challenging the Conventional Wisdom on Diet, Weight Control, and Disease. It was worth hearing all this again because the conventional wisdom is so pervasive that one needs to be reminded about the actual evidence. The author does a good job going over specific studies to illustrate why the prevailing low-fat dogma is wrong.
Nerd addendum:
To fact-check, I looked up one of these papers--a trial in Israel of low-fat vs. Mediterranean vs. low-carb diets. The article says what the author says it does, i.e. the low-carb group did better than the other two. If anything, she undersold it because the low-carb diet did not have a calorie restriction whereas the other two did!
One thing that did irritate me about the book is the incessant bashing of epidemiology. The examples of "diet-heart" studies that she covers constitute a veritable catalog of methodological errors. The issue isn't that Keys & co. were doing epidemiology--the issue is that they were doing bad science. As the author mentions correctly, we know about the link between cancer and smoking and have saved millions of lives because of epidemiology. Thus the book could have been an opportunity to explain what good epidemiology is and how one determines causation from observational studies, instead of repeating dangerously oversimplified shibboleths about correlation and causation. Of course, by itself, a spurious correlation from a lousy study does not prove causation. But a real correlation is evidence of causation, and along with some other epidemiological criteria can provide actionable proof of cause. I'm not a writer and realize it is not easy to explain these things, but we've got to figure out how to move beyond the poles of blind faith in expert dogma on the one hand and nihilistic truth-bashing on the other. There is a just middle of weighing the best available evidence. Reality exists.
Some books on epidemiology:
Investigating Disease Patterns: The Science of Epidemiology
Designing Clinical Research
Clinical Epidemiology: The Essentials
Gordis Epidemiology
February 6, 2020
4.0 Stars
This was a fascinating and persuasive non fiction book that analyses the flawed research that has incorrectly villianized fats over the decades. The information was detailed, yet accessible to general readers like myself. The author's arguments appeared to be quiet sound and well researched. As a result of reading this book, I have reevaulated my own long-held beliefs about healthy eating.
This was a fascinating and persuasive non fiction book that analyses the flawed research that has incorrectly villianized fats over the decades. The information was detailed, yet accessible to general readers like myself. The author's arguments appeared to be quiet sound and well researched. As a result of reading this book, I have reevaulated my own long-held beliefs about healthy eating.
July 18, 2014
Ok, so you know that vegetable fats like margarine and canola oil are good for you, right? And animal fats like butter, tallow, and lard are horrible for you - of course they are, because that's what nutritionists and the American Heart Association and the USDA have told us our whole lives. But have you ever stopped to wonder what this advice is based on?
It turns out that they are based on a whole bunch of pretty shoddy evidence. Nina Teicholz, a food writer, sets out to examine why scientists began vilifying traditional animal fats and tropical fats such as coconut and palm oil, and promoting industrially processed seed oils such as canola, sunflower, safflower, and soybean oil. She goes back to the original studies to look at the methods employed, interviews researchers and public health experts, and tries to get a deep understanding of why nutritional advice over the past fifty years went in this particular direction.
And, honestly, it's pretty mind-boggling. The study that got everybody blaming meat and animal fats for heart disease was called The Seven Countries Study, conducted by Ancel Keys. And right away, it's obvious that it should never have been used to prove anything because it's so flawed. Data was collected in different ways in different places. And many of the regions with low rates of heart disease that Keys focused on, such as parts of Greece and Italy, were in pretty dire straits in the Post-World War II era. People weren't eating much meat, but that didn't mean that they hadn't eaten lots of meat before the war. Not to mention the fact that some of the food surveys were done during Lent, when many Catholics give up meat for a month. Teichoz finds persuasive evidence that people in these parts of the world started eating more meat as the economy improved, and found that their health outcomes improved along with increased meat consumption.
The problem was that American medical and public health experts were so desperate for some way to curb the heart disease epidemic that was felling thousands of people, particularly middle aged men, every year, and they grabbed onto Keys' data and wouldn't let go. In fact, they still haven't let go, despite the fact that Americans have been reducing their red meat and saturated fat consumption for years and yet levels of heart disease, breast cancer, diabetes, obesity, and metabolic syndrome continue to skyrocket.
This book is really a primer in the way that policy can be shaped around ideas that are fundamentally wrong and develops a force of its own that is incredibly difficult to reverse. Scientists whose results showed findings that disagreed with the idea that meat and saturated fat caused heart disease and cancer were either ignored, or vilified, or had their funding cut off. It became a career risk to disagree with Ancel Keys and his successors.
Some of this information was familiar to me from Gary Taubes' book Why We Get Fat and What to Do About It and Jeff O'Connell's Sugar Nation, but Teicholz adds another dimension to it by going back to the source and interviewing many of the people who were involved in formulating the research and policy-making, on both sides of the debate.
Perhaps most interesting was the chapter about the Mediterranean diet. Despite the fact that no definitive Mediterranean diet exists, and olive oil is most likely a modern replacement for animal oils used in cooking, researchers in Italy and Greece, keen to preserve what they saw as a traditional way of life and promote the local olive oil industry, first proposed the Mediterranean diet as the "ideal diet" in the 1970s. It has pretty much kept that status since then. In the 1980s, researchers and public health experts were flown to conferences in the Greek Islands and on the Italian coast and wooed with delicious food, wine and olive oil (financed by the Greek and Italian governments and olive oil companies). No wonder then that so many reported rather breathlessly about the wonders of olive oil and its many health benefits. Teicholz finds evidence that the Mediterranean diet is, in fact, better for us than a low-fat diet, based on a well-controlled Israeli clinical trial. Some fat, of course, is better than no fat in the diet. But you know what did even better than the Mediterranean diet in the Israeli study? A low-carb diet. Somehow that got lost in the all the press releases and discussion.
The bit that will really make your mind explode though, is the chapter on the vegetable oils that have been pushed as a healthier alternative to animal fats. Teicholz documents how incredibly nasty and toxic they are, particularly for those who work with them in fast food kitchens. When heated to high temperatures for frying, they oxidize and produce all sorts of horrible, nasty compounds that will fry your intestines, but that's not even the worst of it. Vegetable oil vapors turn into a hard shellac-like substance that accumulates on everything in a kitchen - the fryers and other equipment, the lungs of the people working there, and their uniforms, which have a nasty habit of catching fire because the oxidized oils are so combustible. Cleaning has become a total nightmare.
It turns out that they are based on a whole bunch of pretty shoddy evidence. Nina Teicholz, a food writer, sets out to examine why scientists began vilifying traditional animal fats and tropical fats such as coconut and palm oil, and promoting industrially processed seed oils such as canola, sunflower, safflower, and soybean oil. She goes back to the original studies to look at the methods employed, interviews researchers and public health experts, and tries to get a deep understanding of why nutritional advice over the past fifty years went in this particular direction.
And, honestly, it's pretty mind-boggling. The study that got everybody blaming meat and animal fats for heart disease was called The Seven Countries Study, conducted by Ancel Keys. And right away, it's obvious that it should never have been used to prove anything because it's so flawed. Data was collected in different ways in different places. And many of the regions with low rates of heart disease that Keys focused on, such as parts of Greece and Italy, were in pretty dire straits in the Post-World War II era. People weren't eating much meat, but that didn't mean that they hadn't eaten lots of meat before the war. Not to mention the fact that some of the food surveys were done during Lent, when many Catholics give up meat for a month. Teichoz finds persuasive evidence that people in these parts of the world started eating more meat as the economy improved, and found that their health outcomes improved along with increased meat consumption.
The problem was that American medical and public health experts were so desperate for some way to curb the heart disease epidemic that was felling thousands of people, particularly middle aged men, every year, and they grabbed onto Keys' data and wouldn't let go. In fact, they still haven't let go, despite the fact that Americans have been reducing their red meat and saturated fat consumption for years and yet levels of heart disease, breast cancer, diabetes, obesity, and metabolic syndrome continue to skyrocket.
This book is really a primer in the way that policy can be shaped around ideas that are fundamentally wrong and develops a force of its own that is incredibly difficult to reverse. Scientists whose results showed findings that disagreed with the idea that meat and saturated fat caused heart disease and cancer were either ignored, or vilified, or had their funding cut off. It became a career risk to disagree with Ancel Keys and his successors.
Some of this information was familiar to me from Gary Taubes' book Why We Get Fat and What to Do About It and Jeff O'Connell's Sugar Nation, but Teicholz adds another dimension to it by going back to the source and interviewing many of the people who were involved in formulating the research and policy-making, on both sides of the debate.
Perhaps most interesting was the chapter about the Mediterranean diet. Despite the fact that no definitive Mediterranean diet exists, and olive oil is most likely a modern replacement for animal oils used in cooking, researchers in Italy and Greece, keen to preserve what they saw as a traditional way of life and promote the local olive oil industry, first proposed the Mediterranean diet as the "ideal diet" in the 1970s. It has pretty much kept that status since then. In the 1980s, researchers and public health experts were flown to conferences in the Greek Islands and on the Italian coast and wooed with delicious food, wine and olive oil (financed by the Greek and Italian governments and olive oil companies). No wonder then that so many reported rather breathlessly about the wonders of olive oil and its many health benefits. Teicholz finds evidence that the Mediterranean diet is, in fact, better for us than a low-fat diet, based on a well-controlled Israeli clinical trial. Some fat, of course, is better than no fat in the diet. But you know what did even better than the Mediterranean diet in the Israeli study? A low-carb diet. Somehow that got lost in the all the press releases and discussion.
The bit that will really make your mind explode though, is the chapter on the vegetable oils that have been pushed as a healthier alternative to animal fats. Teicholz documents how incredibly nasty and toxic they are, particularly for those who work with them in fast food kitchens. When heated to high temperatures for frying, they oxidize and produce all sorts of horrible, nasty compounds that will fry your intestines, but that's not even the worst of it. Vegetable oil vapors turn into a hard shellac-like substance that accumulates on everything in a kitchen - the fryers and other equipment, the lungs of the people working there, and their uniforms, which have a nasty habit of catching fire because the oxidized oils are so combustible. Cleaning has become a total nightmare.
March 21, 2017
The Big Fat Surprise is a dense, but interesting, compilation of information documenting why the low-fat/heart-healthy diet hypothesis is not based on solid scientific study. In fact, it may cause many of the problems it was developed to prevent!
The author goes through an exhaustive review of the history and studies how the low-fat diet became the basis of what is considered to be a preventive measure to diet related heart disease. Even today, this is the fundamental treatment for preventing heart disease (along with complementary medications). This treatment regime for prevention for heart disease has become ingrained in our thinking. It has almost considered to be fact! A fact that has been built on a foundation of quicksand.
I became interested in the book because in the last year or so I have been slowly migrating to a more "natural" type of diet. So I eat eggs and bacon and use butter instead of margarine. I also try to use more fresh ingredients in my cooking. I have read about the "cholesterol myth" a couple of years ago. The myth part being that high cholesterol is a marker to a heart attack. Studies have shown that cholesterol is NOT a good predictive marker and not critical to the prevention of heart disease (except for specific cases).
The low-fat/high-carb diet also brought on the use of vegetable oils to replace animal fats in cooking. The author goes into great detail how these oils went on to the creation of hydrogenated fats, trans fats, margarine, etc. A huge explosion of "manufactured" foods to replace, in what was supposed to be a healthy alternative, to the things that were used with butter, whole milk, eggs, animal fat (lard, for example) and all the rest in traditional cooking. These new chemicals were not and have not been subjected to rigorous testing. The new stuff was unleashed on consumers worldwide. Some of these oils can and are toxic when heated to high heats for prolonged periods of time. Take your local fast food joint for example that cooks fries until midnight. Also, the main focus of the dietary has been on heart disease because heart disease has been the number one killer in premature death. The common logic is that heart disease is preventable. The Grim Reeper's other companion however is cancer. Has this revolution to prevent heart disease caused an increase in fatal cancer cases? The book doesn't answer that question but points out the low-fat diet pretense has a rather myopic focus on heart disease without consideration of the other impacts it might cause on human health and mortality rates.
Tangled up in all this are the ambitions of major players like Ancel Keys and others. Profit as major food manufacturers paid for studies and were particular about funding studies that would produce the results that supported their products. And then there are the politics in the creation of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). An underfunded organization to oversee all this on behalf of the public and taxpayers.
In the end, the author asserts that if a person goes back to eating milk, eggs, cheese, butter, juicy fatty steaks, and low carbs; the probability is that you are less of a risk of not only a heart attack but also other health complications (assuming you don't have allergies to these foods). In fact, after 50 years of the low-fat/high-carb diets, obesity, diabetes is at an all time high. And while there is a reduction in heart mortality, can that be mainly attributed to the low-fat diet? The science leans to say no. What about the reduction of cigarette smoking say for example? The author cautions about making an assertion such as this though because there is no actual data to support it. Which is precisely where we end up on the the low-fat diet.
The narrator did a fantastic job in reading this book with all its facts, studies and other information presented.
The book is interesting and informative. I found it overwhelming at times with information overload. It is worth a read though if you are interested in your diet and health.
The author goes through an exhaustive review of the history and studies how the low-fat diet became the basis of what is considered to be a preventive measure to diet related heart disease. Even today, this is the fundamental treatment for preventing heart disease (along with complementary medications). This treatment regime for prevention for heart disease has become ingrained in our thinking. It has almost considered to be fact! A fact that has been built on a foundation of quicksand.
I became interested in the book because in the last year or so I have been slowly migrating to a more "natural" type of diet. So I eat eggs and bacon and use butter instead of margarine. I also try to use more fresh ingredients in my cooking. I have read about the "cholesterol myth" a couple of years ago. The myth part being that high cholesterol is a marker to a heart attack. Studies have shown that cholesterol is NOT a good predictive marker and not critical to the prevention of heart disease (except for specific cases).
The low-fat/high-carb diet also brought on the use of vegetable oils to replace animal fats in cooking. The author goes into great detail how these oils went on to the creation of hydrogenated fats, trans fats, margarine, etc. A huge explosion of "manufactured" foods to replace, in what was supposed to be a healthy alternative, to the things that were used with butter, whole milk, eggs, animal fat (lard, for example) and all the rest in traditional cooking. These new chemicals were not and have not been subjected to rigorous testing. The new stuff was unleashed on consumers worldwide. Some of these oils can and are toxic when heated to high heats for prolonged periods of time. Take your local fast food joint for example that cooks fries until midnight. Also, the main focus of the dietary has been on heart disease because heart disease has been the number one killer in premature death. The common logic is that heart disease is preventable. The Grim Reeper's other companion however is cancer. Has this revolution to prevent heart disease caused an increase in fatal cancer cases? The book doesn't answer that question but points out the low-fat diet pretense has a rather myopic focus on heart disease without consideration of the other impacts it might cause on human health and mortality rates.
Tangled up in all this are the ambitions of major players like Ancel Keys and others. Profit as major food manufacturers paid for studies and were particular about funding studies that would produce the results that supported their products. And then there are the politics in the creation of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). An underfunded organization to oversee all this on behalf of the public and taxpayers.
In the end, the author asserts that if a person goes back to eating milk, eggs, cheese, butter, juicy fatty steaks, and low carbs; the probability is that you are less of a risk of not only a heart attack but also other health complications (assuming you don't have allergies to these foods). In fact, after 50 years of the low-fat/high-carb diets, obesity, diabetes is at an all time high. And while there is a reduction in heart mortality, can that be mainly attributed to the low-fat diet? The science leans to say no. What about the reduction of cigarette smoking say for example? The author cautions about making an assertion such as this though because there is no actual data to support it. Which is precisely where we end up on the the low-fat diet.
The narrator did a fantastic job in reading this book with all its facts, studies and other information presented.
The book is interesting and informative. I found it overwhelming at times with information overload. It is worth a read though if you are interested in your diet and health.
March 4, 2015
This book exceeded my expectations in both form and content. The author assembles a devastating case against the low-fat diet that has been recommended by doctors and government agencies as a way to prevent heart disease. My interest was piqued because my family--dutiful "compliers" with health advice, one and all--zealously partook of the low-fat carb-fest that was the 1980s through 1990s. Several of my family members now have serious health conditions that I can hardly say were caused by this diet--but I'm sure it didn't help. Sample food selection from these days: unlimited snacking on low-fat pretzels. It's okay if they don't have surface salt!
What Teicholz shows is a cascade of inane decisions on top of each other, reminding me a bit of the episode of The Simpsons where they release lizards into the wild to kill birds, confident that they can then "unleash wave after wave of Chinese needle snakes" when the lizards proliferate, and then take care of the snakes with gorillas, who will "simply freeze to death" "when wintertime rolls around."
In this case, we have a weak association between cholesterol and heart disease, which turns into a frantic effort to lower cholesterol, which is achieved by eliminating saturated (animal) fats in favor of vegetable oils. These oils need to be made solid to be put in packaged food, so they got partially hydrogenated. Then we realized trans fats were bad for you so we replaced those with interesterated (sp?) oils, which turn out to be toxic when heated to high temperatures. No reliable evidence existed for many of these steps; for example, the vegetable-oil diet seemed to make heart-disease outcomes worse, but by that point, researchers were so religious in their quest to lower cholesterol, they didn't consider that important. In fact, any time researchers came up with evidence that ran counter to the "diet-heart hypothesis" they got shouted down, or their data was treated as a problem to be explained away rather than considered. Meanwhile, dietary fats got replaced with carbs, with results that we're all familiar with.
Some of the mistakes in this science are such boners that they're breathtaking. Remember the "Mediterranean Diet" that was supposed to be so ideal--lots of vegetables, grains, and olive oil, and not many animal products? The Europeans who followed this diet had low heart-disease and such natural lifestyles! It turns out that the original study about the Greek islanders was done during Lent.
As for the form of this book--it's almost entirely about heart-health rather than diabetes or obesity, and therefore contains zero-percent concern-trolling by volume. Nor is Teicholz very interested in providing actual diet advice to the reader (you could read some between the lines if you like). Instead, this is a story of the processes of science and publishing going wrong; of advocacy groups exerting disproportionate power; and of how extremely difficult it is to do ethical, conclusive research on such a complicated system as the human diet. The American Heart Association comes off particularly badly, and looking at this book alongside my recent read The Emperor of All Maladies you could become suspicious that correct scientific ideas don't need associations like this; the groups flourish when desperation to do something about a health problem outstrips knowledge of what is to be done. There's also one passage here--about how you can assert almost anything if you throw enough variables in the pot--that should be assigned in statistics classes.
Consider this not a diet guide but an analysis of a scientific community that lost its way and an indictment of government making recommendations without solid reasons. If it makes you feel free to enjoy a nice steak afterwards, that's just a bonus.
What Teicholz shows is a cascade of inane decisions on top of each other, reminding me a bit of the episode of The Simpsons where they release lizards into the wild to kill birds, confident that they can then "unleash wave after wave of Chinese needle snakes" when the lizards proliferate, and then take care of the snakes with gorillas, who will "simply freeze to death" "when wintertime rolls around."
In this case, we have a weak association between cholesterol and heart disease, which turns into a frantic effort to lower cholesterol, which is achieved by eliminating saturated (animal) fats in favor of vegetable oils. These oils need to be made solid to be put in packaged food, so they got partially hydrogenated. Then we realized trans fats were bad for you so we replaced those with interesterated (sp?) oils, which turn out to be toxic when heated to high temperatures. No reliable evidence existed for many of these steps; for example, the vegetable-oil diet seemed to make heart-disease outcomes worse, but by that point, researchers were so religious in their quest to lower cholesterol, they didn't consider that important. In fact, any time researchers came up with evidence that ran counter to the "diet-heart hypothesis" they got shouted down, or their data was treated as a problem to be explained away rather than considered. Meanwhile, dietary fats got replaced with carbs, with results that we're all familiar with.
Some of the mistakes in this science are such boners that they're breathtaking. Remember the "Mediterranean Diet" that was supposed to be so ideal--lots of vegetables, grains, and olive oil, and not many animal products? The Europeans who followed this diet had low heart-disease and such natural lifestyles! It turns out that the original study about the Greek islanders was done during Lent.
As for the form of this book--it's almost entirely about heart-health rather than diabetes or obesity, and therefore contains zero-percent concern-trolling by volume. Nor is Teicholz very interested in providing actual diet advice to the reader (you could read some between the lines if you like). Instead, this is a story of the processes of science and publishing going wrong; of advocacy groups exerting disproportionate power; and of how extremely difficult it is to do ethical, conclusive research on such a complicated system as the human diet. The American Heart Association comes off particularly badly, and looking at this book alongside my recent read The Emperor of All Maladies you could become suspicious that correct scientific ideas don't need associations like this; the groups flourish when desperation to do something about a health problem outstrips knowledge of what is to be done. There's also one passage here--about how you can assert almost anything if you throw enough variables in the pot--that should be assigned in statistics classes.
Consider this not a diet guide but an analysis of a scientific community that lost its way and an indictment of government making recommendations without solid reasons. If it makes you feel free to enjoy a nice steak afterwards, that's just a bonus.
April 27, 2016
http://bookslifewine.com/r-the-big-fa...
4.5 stars rounded down to 4 stars!
I purchased The Big Fat Surprise on 27-Jan-2015 - it stayed on Mt. TBR for 1 year, 3 months.
I want to start this review with a little information about me:
I am currently an omnivore and I consume all foods with the exception of bananas (allergy). I do have a rather severe lactose intolerance but I can consume cooked milk products and most other forms of dairy in limited amounts.
Historically, the women in my family have long, healthy lives on both sides: My great, great grandmother died (age 120) when I was about 8 years old. Her daughter - my great aunt - lived to be 105. My mother's mother is still alive at 89. With the exception of my father's mother, none of the women in my family have had any "real" (non-genetic) health issues. Both my grandmother and aunt were mentally agile until very close to death, maintained a decent weight and did not take a lot of medications. They served red meat regularly and they cooked with lard and butter. I recall my mother complaining about the large quantities of fats they cooked with and how unhealthy it was. My mother's mother has health issues but lived the same way - and to be honest, all of her health problems are genetic. To this day my grandma (mom's mom) demands fresh fruits, vegetables and fresh meat with low salt/preservatives on a daily basis and she has outlived her medical diagnosis by over 20 years.
In comparison, my father's mother decided to remove dairy and fats from her diet. She cooked exclusively with Canola Oil®* and "buttered" everything with Country Crock® instead of butter. She ate/purchased very little red meat preferring poultry instead. This grandma has a lot of health problems - most of which do not seem to be genetic.
As I read through The Big Fat Surprise, I found myself feeling quite proud (of myself). I really, seriously dislike reading long form articles, they irk me for some strange reason. The Big Fat Surprise is one extremely long news-like article but I managed to force my way through 212 pages! Yaaaaaaayyyy Me!!
The style of the book really started to grind my nerves after some time so I put The Big Fat Surprise down. And never picked it up again. I read 212 pages and a lot of those pages started to feel a bit redundant. A lot of The Big Fat Surprise is focused on letting the reader know that - unlike scientists - Ms Teicholz did her research!
As I read page after page I took note after note. I have pages and pages of notes that...show I paid attention? IDK, the longer I'm away from this book the more I feel it's redundant and I don't care to include said notes.
The entirely of The Big Fat Surprise can be boiled down to this:
Scientists/Doctors are willfully and/or ignorantly misinform/ing the US public about heart disease and it's cause(s). They do not really know what causes heart disease but it's been scientifically proven it's not fat. Also, ignore all "heart safe" diets because they were created from bullshit. At the end of the day, eat what you want knowing that it may - or may not - kill you.
The parts that really stood out for me was the section on the Mediterranean Diet. The Mediterranean was created by two Greek women - Anna Ferro-Luzzi and Antonia Trichopoulou who were desperate to discover a way to preserve their Greek culture - especially olive trees.
The idea for the Mediterranean Diet came to Trichopolou when a fellow Greek came to her complaining of the type of oils recommended for heart health: the Greeks were used to olive oil and disliked vegetable oils. Over time, as the two women tried to hammer out the details of the "Mediterranean Diet," they ran into more problems than they anticipated.
Great question, right?? Well, in order to push the Mediterranean Diet forward, it was narrowed down considerably. Instead of encompassing the entire Mediterranean, the Mediterranean Diet is limited to the cuisine of Southern Italy and Crete. Only. This was the only way to narrow the diet down enough for it to be "sell-able" to the public. It was decided that France, Portugal, Spain and Northern Italy did not reflect the model diet - even adding the entirety of Italy would create too many variables - and only Southern Italy and Crete were applicable since they shared a similar culinary regime. Huh. Way to change a region into 1/2 a country and an island.
All in all, I enjoyed the read - as much as I could stomach, that is - and I would recommend The Big Fat Surprise to those who are interested in this kind of thing. And don't mind reading absurdly long articles.
*Per The Big Fat Surprise - Canola Oil® is not named "canola" because it's made from corn, it's named "canola" because it originated in Canada. O_O Ignore the big picture of corn on the front...ain't no corn in Canola Oil®.
4.5 stars rounded down to 4 stars!
I purchased The Big Fat Surprise on 27-Jan-2015 - it stayed on Mt. TBR for 1 year, 3 months.
I want to start this review with a little information about me:
I am currently an omnivore and I consume all foods with the exception of bananas (allergy). I do have a rather severe lactose intolerance but I can consume cooked milk products and most other forms of dairy in limited amounts.
Historically, the women in my family have long, healthy lives on both sides: My great, great grandmother died (age 120) when I was about 8 years old. Her daughter - my great aunt - lived to be 105. My mother's mother is still alive at 89. With the exception of my father's mother, none of the women in my family have had any "real" (non-genetic) health issues. Both my grandmother and aunt were mentally agile until very close to death, maintained a decent weight and did not take a lot of medications. They served red meat regularly and they cooked with lard and butter. I recall my mother complaining about the large quantities of fats they cooked with and how unhealthy it was. My mother's mother has health issues but lived the same way - and to be honest, all of her health problems are genetic. To this day my grandma (mom's mom) demands fresh fruits, vegetables and fresh meat with low salt/preservatives on a daily basis and she has outlived her medical diagnosis by over 20 years.
In comparison, my father's mother decided to remove dairy and fats from her diet. She cooked exclusively with Canola Oil®* and "buttered" everything with Country Crock® instead of butter. She ate/purchased very little red meat preferring poultry instead. This grandma has a lot of health problems - most of which do not seem to be genetic.
In retrospect, it is perplexing why scientists did not question the assumption that entirely new foodstuffs could restore a population to good health. How could it be that a healthy diet would depend upon these just-invented foods, such as milk "filled" with soybean oil?
It's true that vegetable oils had been shown to lower total cholesterol successfully, and this effect held great appeal to a research community obsessed with cholesterol. Yet cholesterol-lowering was just one of the many effects of these oils on biological processes, not all of which seemed to be so beneficial. In fact, no human population had been documented surviving long term on oils as a major source of fat until 1976, when researchers studied the Israelis, who at the time consumed "the highest reported" quantity of vegetable oils in the world. Their rates of heart disease turned out to be relatively high, however, contradicting the belief that vegetable oils were protective.
When I asked [Jeremiah] Stamler about the novelty of vegetable oils he said that he and [Ancel] Keys had been concerned about the absence of any historical record for human consumption of these oils, but that ultimately it wasn't considered an impediment to promoting a "prudent" diet.
- page 81-82
As I read through The Big Fat Surprise, I found myself feeling quite proud (of myself). I really, seriously dislike reading long form articles, they irk me for some strange reason. The Big Fat Surprise is one extremely long news-like article but I managed to force my way through 212 pages! Yaaaaaaayyyy Me!!
The style of the book really started to grind my nerves after some time so I put The Big Fat Surprise down. And never picked it up again. I read 212 pages and a lot of those pages started to feel a bit redundant. A lot of The Big Fat Surprise is focused on letting the reader know that - unlike scientists - Ms Teicholz did her research!
As I read page after page I took note after note. I have pages and pages of notes that...show I paid attention? IDK, the longer I'm away from this book the more I feel it's redundant and I don't care to include said notes.
The entirely of The Big Fat Surprise can be boiled down to this:
Scientists/Doctors are willfully and/or ignorantly misinform/ing the US public about heart disease and it's cause(s). They do not really know what causes heart disease but it's been scientifically proven it's not fat. Also, ignore all "heart safe" diets because they were created from bullshit. At the end of the day, eat what you want knowing that it may - or may not - kill you.
The parts that really stood out for me was the section on the Mediterranean Diet. The Mediterranean was created by two Greek women - Anna Ferro-Luzzi and Antonia Trichopoulou who were desperate to discover a way to preserve their Greek culture - especially olive trees.
"...the two women shared a common fear that they were on the front line of a battle to defend an endangered way of life. Their fellow Mediterraneans were starting to eat fast foods at alarming rates, and it seemed that modernization threatened to extinguish the region's traditional cuisine before it had even been properly understood. Both women therefore felt the issue to be pressing."
-page 179
The idea for the Mediterranean Diet came to Trichopolou when a fellow Greek came to her complaining of the type of oils recommended for heart health: the Greeks were used to olive oil and disliked vegetable oils. Over time, as the two women tried to hammer out the details of the "Mediterranean Diet," they ran into more problems than they anticipated.
"Did any single Mediterranean Diet even truly exist? There was so much variation in eating patterns across countries and even within countries that it seemed nearly impossible to define any kind of overarching dietary pattern with any specificity. How could something so vague be evaluated, much less promoted as an ideal?"
-page 179
Great question, right?? Well, in order to push the Mediterranean Diet forward, it was narrowed down considerably. Instead of encompassing the entire Mediterranean, the Mediterranean Diet is limited to the cuisine of Southern Italy and Crete. Only. This was the only way to narrow the diet down enough for it to be "sell-able" to the public. It was decided that France, Portugal, Spain and Northern Italy did not reflect the model diet - even adding the entirety of Italy would create too many variables - and only Southern Italy and Crete were applicable since they shared a similar culinary regime. Huh. Way to change a region into 1/2 a country and an island.
All in all, I enjoyed the read - as much as I could stomach, that is - and I would recommend The Big Fat Surprise to those who are interested in this kind of thing. And don't mind reading absurdly long articles.
*Per The Big Fat Surprise - Canola Oil® is not named "canola" because it's made from corn, it's named "canola" because it originated in Canada. O_O Ignore the big picture of corn on the front...ain't no corn in Canola Oil®.
The oils from linseed and rapeseed, in a genetically modified form, are blended to make “canola” oil. The “can” in canola is named for its origin, in Canada.
-page 86
May 12, 2014
I read this for NetGalley.
Thank you, Nina Teicholz, for researching and explaining why saturated fat, which is essential to good health, became vilified by most American nutritionists and physicians, and why its role in healthy nutrition should be restored.
This book successfully challenges and repudiates the vilification of saturated fat and raises the question about the nutritional soundness of the low-fat diet, the prudent diet and the extensive use of polyunsaturated oils in the American diet.
Ms. Teicholz understands organic chemistry and how to explain it. Saturated fats are far more stable than polyunsaturated fats (read the book to find out why – I took Organic Chemistry in college and that’s not as fun as reading this book!). The book explains basic lipid chemistry in simple layman terms. It takes off from that point and becomes a really informative work about science, politics, personality and why scientists should always be objective and scientific.
I have read numerous books about nutrition, ranging from the importance of Omega-3 fats to Denise Minger’s “Death by Food Pyramid.” Ms. Teicholz’s book is a worthy contribution to that public body of knowledge. She expended great effort in researching this book and the results are worth it. I have learned much from this book and will put it to good use, now and in the future. It is well worth reading!
And thank you, Ms. Teicholz – I can now eat quiche without guilt!
Thank you, Nina Teicholz, for researching and explaining why saturated fat, which is essential to good health, became vilified by most American nutritionists and physicians, and why its role in healthy nutrition should be restored.
This book successfully challenges and repudiates the vilification of saturated fat and raises the question about the nutritional soundness of the low-fat diet, the prudent diet and the extensive use of polyunsaturated oils in the American diet.
Ms. Teicholz understands organic chemistry and how to explain it. Saturated fats are far more stable than polyunsaturated fats (read the book to find out why – I took Organic Chemistry in college and that’s not as fun as reading this book!). The book explains basic lipid chemistry in simple layman terms. It takes off from that point and becomes a really informative work about science, politics, personality and why scientists should always be objective and scientific.
I have read numerous books about nutrition, ranging from the importance of Omega-3 fats to Denise Minger’s “Death by Food Pyramid.” Ms. Teicholz’s book is a worthy contribution to that public body of knowledge. She expended great effort in researching this book and the results are worth it. I have learned much from this book and will put it to good use, now and in the future. It is well worth reading!
And thank you, Ms. Teicholz – I can now eat quiche without guilt!
May 16, 2014
This probably won't appeal to many people but since I've been reading a lot about this subject and am now eating pretty much the opposite of the US food pyramid I was curious to read the history to see how we ended up being given such apparently misguided advice on nutrition. The book is very comprehensive but unsurprisingly it comes down to a few strong personalities, money, politics and vested interests (the American Heart Association convinced us to move away from saturated fats to toxic vegetable oils after massive funding by Proctor & Gamble - then one of the largest vegetable oil producers in the US for instance).
December 13, 2014
So... now not only do I have to hate food companies, I apparently have to hate the FDA, American Heart Association, countless scientific and government organizations, Congress, scientists and all the other people who pushed this low-fat diet concept based on flawed science and inflated egos.
And I've had my eyes opened, at least somewhat, to how the science community works. I thought -- silly me -- that scientists were focused on proving their theories...finding the truth. It never dawned on me that someone could be so blind to the things that might point toward a flaw in a theory. That he or she could be so ego-driven as to crush those who might have evidence that a theory is false. And when this is applied to the diet directives of generations of an entire nation and parts of the world, it seems one scientist in particular may have caused this whole epidemic of obesity and disease. Of course, he's not around at this point to see the fruits of his labor.
The information provided in the book was really interesting. It was interesting to see how a journalist, with a little bit of effort, could uncover the flaws in the research that has formed the basis for our current diet. Sure, she's not a scientist herself, but the flaws she pointed out seemed to be pretty logical and they did seem to be corroborated with other scientists in the field. I'm not a scientist either, but her arguments were compelling.
The problem with all of this information is that we're still being pushed toward a low-fat diet and away from animal fats. We've created many new foods to replace the ones we used to eat, and it seems like none of it is good for us and is probably exacerbating the problem. As a nation, our health is obviously failing. And we've been pretty much brainwashed that low-fat is better. It sounds logical... See that fat on that steak? If I eat it, that fat will become mine. Yet some research shows that it's the carbohydrates, and especially sugar, that sticks with us and causes these health issues, and that fat (especially animal fat) has a very important place in our diet. And now I'm not sure which way is up. What if low-fat is the way to go? It doesn't seem to be working for most people, even when they are religious about it.
Since the "scientists" who couldn't admit they might be wrong are finally passing away, maybe more information will come out about how we should really be eating. There's just so much conflicting information out there, but I am thinking maybe I need a sugar detox at the very least.
And I've had my eyes opened, at least somewhat, to how the science community works. I thought -- silly me -- that scientists were focused on proving their theories...finding the truth. It never dawned on me that someone could be so blind to the things that might point toward a flaw in a theory. That he or she could be so ego-driven as to crush those who might have evidence that a theory is false. And when this is applied to the diet directives of generations of an entire nation and parts of the world, it seems one scientist in particular may have caused this whole epidemic of obesity and disease. Of course, he's not around at this point to see the fruits of his labor.
The information provided in the book was really interesting. It was interesting to see how a journalist, with a little bit of effort, could uncover the flaws in the research that has formed the basis for our current diet. Sure, she's not a scientist herself, but the flaws she pointed out seemed to be pretty logical and they did seem to be corroborated with other scientists in the field. I'm not a scientist either, but her arguments were compelling.
The problem with all of this information is that we're still being pushed toward a low-fat diet and away from animal fats. We've created many new foods to replace the ones we used to eat, and it seems like none of it is good for us and is probably exacerbating the problem. As a nation, our health is obviously failing. And we've been pretty much brainwashed that low-fat is better. It sounds logical... See that fat on that steak? If I eat it, that fat will become mine. Yet some research shows that it's the carbohydrates, and especially sugar, that sticks with us and causes these health issues, and that fat (especially animal fat) has a very important place in our diet. And now I'm not sure which way is up. What if low-fat is the way to go? It doesn't seem to be working for most people, even when they are religious about it.
Since the "scientists" who couldn't admit they might be wrong are finally passing away, maybe more information will come out about how we should really be eating. There's just so much conflicting information out there, but I am thinking maybe I need a sugar detox at the very least.
May 20, 2014
I just finished her book. It is a fascinating history of nutritional science in the last 100 years. The book is really an historical page turner. No one has looked at the nutritional science of our time more comprehensively. This book will change our lives.
February 11, 2022
Nina Teicholz’s The Big Fat Surprise (BFS) She advised readers to "eat butter; drink milk whole, and feed it to the whole family. Stock up on creamy cheeses, offal, and sausage, and yes, bacon"
The DGAC, the US Department of Health and Human Services, the Center for Science in the Public Interest, and others, including a petition signed by 180 scientists harshly criticized Teicholz' claims.
Teicholz is a meat industry lobbyist paid $144,000/yr to help "The US meat industry’s wildly successful, 40-year crusade to keep its hold on the American diet" She works for NAMI ( the entity formed when the American Institute and the National Agricultural Marketing Association merged ) and NMAI does NOT have your best interests at heart! They have THE MEAT INDUSTRY'S BEST INTERESTS AT HEART. (see: https www politico com/story/2015/10/the-money-behind-the-fight-over-healthy-eating-214517 for a detailed account of her transition from a journalist to a professional lobbyist )
https qz com/523255/the-us-meat-industrys-wildly-successful-40-year-crusade-to-keep-its-hold-on-the-american-diet/ says
"The efforts to keep Americans from lowering their meat intake include some important new allies. Nina Teicholz, author of The Big Fat Surprise: Why Butter, Meat and Cheese Belong in a Healthy Diet, and the Nutrition Coalition(a lobbying firm) , backed by John and Laura Arnold, billionaires from Texas whose fortunes are tied back to Enron, have joined in as major power players in the fight, according to an in-depth report from Politico.
Their key tactic: Attack the scientific methodology used by those recommending a drop in consumption."
and that's what Nina does in this book --Attack the scientific methodology. She is highly skilled at making you doubt the science and encouraging you that its safe to buy lots and lot of meat and dairy and she is well paid for this skill.
(Does Goodreads no longer allow links in reviews to protect Goodreads members or to protect lobbyist authors from being easily exposed for what they are ?)
The article continues "Promoting the consumption of lean red meat "is not what the science supports," said Walter Willet, head of the nutrition department at the Harvard School of Public Health.
"There is strong evidence that red meat consumption increases risk of diabetes, heart attacks, stroke and some cancers (especially processed meat), and there is not good evidence that this simply due to the fat content," he said.
In a report in October, the World Health Organization categorized red meat as "probably" cancer-causing. The same report also classified bacon. sausage and processed meats as carcinogenic.
Strong evidence from mostly prospective cohort studies but also randomized controlled trials has shown that eating patterns that include lower intake of meats as well as processed meats and processed poultry are associated with reduced risk of [cardiovascular disease] in adults. Moderate evidence indicates that these eating patterns are associated with reduced risk of obesity, type 2 diabetes, and some types of cancer in adults.
So why won't the government take a stronger stance on red meat? Pressure from the meat industry, most likely."
HOW NINA (PAID LOBBYIST) ATTACKS THE SCIENCE
Teicholz appeals to mothers by writing a chapter about how women and children are not adequately represented in studies that show her animal based diet is harmful. However, any study she might cite in favor of her animal based low-carb high fat diet has similar male:female ratios, and most don’t include children.
On page 11-12 Teicholz discusses the Masai tribe of Africa and how they consume quite a bit of milk daily yet have very low cholesterol She also mentions that they are not fat and they don’t have high blood pressure. SHE FAILS TO MENTION THAT THESE AFRICAN TRIBES WALK 30 MILES A DAY and burn 300-500 kcals/hour would be fat. The real crime here is one of omission.
A study by George Mann entitled “Atherosclerosis in the Masai” states the following:
"We find the Masai vessels do show extensive atherosclerosis; they show coronary intimal thickening which is equal to that seen in elderly Americans." Mann goes on to say that the reason why there are so few occlusions (the blockage or closing of a blood vessel) despite the extensive atherosclerosis is that the Masai’s blood vessels enlarge as they age. "
These are some VERY IMPORATANT POINTS that Teicholz VERY INTENTIONALLY CONCEALS.
So The Masai consume a ton of milk and likely a fair amount of meat and yet they do not have elevated cholesterol levels due to a unique biological mechanism. Despite the low cholesterol they still get atherosclerosis. Enough that men in their prime have the blood vessels of elderly Americans. Yet despite even this they manage to escape heart attacks because their vessels are larger than average. The Masai, therefore, are a unique people that do not live like we car divers do.
On page 14 Teicholz discussing a text by "Hrdlicka3,4" published near 1900 and states:
"The Native Americans he visited were eating a diet of predominantly meat, mainly from buffalo, yet, as Hrdlicka observed, they seemed to be spectacularly healthy and lived to a ripe old age."
However, if you go look at the text you will find that the diet of Native Americans is based around the most abundant crops in the Americas: CORN AND WHEAT. There are several pages devoted to describing the diet. Page 19 of Hrdlicka states :
"The principal article of diet among the Indians is maize, which is eaten in the form of bread of various kinds, or as mush, or boiled entire. It is also parched on charcoal and eaten thus, or is ground into a fine meal, which, sweetened, constitutes the nourishing pinole of some of the tribes. Wheat is used in similar ways but less extensively. Next in importance to corn and wheat in the Indian diet are meat and fat and BEANS. Meat is scarce."
The American plains Indians were also nomads who walked tremendous distances carrying their provisions on their backs ,THEY WHERE NOT CAR DRIVERS!!! (Teicholz INTENTIONALLY conceals this )
Page 15, Teicholz attempts to make the case that Africans living in British colonies nearly 100 years ago ate a ton of meat and had basically no cancer. As evidence for both of these claims she cites what amounts as a Letter by George Prentice a physician who worked in Southern Central Africa, in 1923.
"The British Medical Journal routinely carried reports from colonial physicians who, though experienced in diagnosing cancer at home, could find very little of it in the African colonies overseas. So few cases could be identified that “some seem to assume that it does not exist,”
If you bother to look at the look at the letter by Prentice right after he says" SOME seem to assume that cancer does not exist", he immediately states " this is both a false and dangerous belief that has led to a patient of mine dying of cancer because I myself believed that Africans did not get cancer when I was a younger doctor. I didn’t remove a breast tumor when I could and should have . My patient died because of this." Prentice continued " in addition to breast cancer I see other cancers regularly . I have also seen epithelioma of the face. In this case the eyelids and the whole of one eye were completely destroyed, and the bone of the eye socket was attacked; the case was inoperable. I have seen a tumor, fungating and evidently malignant, that had practically split the bones of the face, causing the eyes to bulge laterally and giving a strange chameleon look to the patient. It was inoperable. I have seen cancer of the left ovary that proved fatal. I believe I have seen cases of malignant disease of the liver, but as there was no autopsy the diagnosis was not confirmed. I have removed many large tumors of the testicle which, if not cancerous, are of a nature unknown to me. Keloids and fatty tumors are very common."
So if you read the letter IT'S CLEAR that Teicholz took Prentice’s words COMPLELELY OUT OF CONTEXT to make it appear he was communicating THE OPPOSITE of what he was actually communicating.
She’s also hoping that you,dear reader, won’t read the letter and realize she’s being wildly misleading you and even hypocritical in how she deals with studies and observations.
All she has been discussing so far in the book is very tenuous and unscientific but she is a highly skilled con artist and is well paid by the meat industry to make meat seem like it does not cause cancer or heart attacks. Good for the meat industry-bad for your health and the environment.
BFS page 22 says :
"Early evidence suggestively linking cholesterol to heart disease also came from animals. In 1913, the Russian pathologist Nikolaj Anitschkow reported that he could induce atherosclerotic-type lesions in rabbits by feeding them huge amounts of cholesterol."(note: this report was written in German Teicholz does not speak German also. The paper discusses experiments on animals such as rodents and chicks, not humans)
BTW:
Pigs have are omnivores with teeth , digestive tracts and organs similar to humans.
https www sciencedirect com/science/article/abs/pii/S0955286312000976 says
"Pigs fed saturated fat/cholesterol have a blunted hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal function, ARE INSULIN RESISTANT and have decreased expression of IRS-1, PGC1α and PPARα"
"Mastering Diabetes" by Khambutta clearly shows how saturated fats CAUSE INSULIN RESISTANCE.
On page 23 of BFS Teicholz writes the following:
"The notion that cholesterol in the diet would translate directly into higher cholesterol in the blood just seemed intuitively reasonable, and was introduced by two biochemists from Columbia University in 1937."
Teicholz attacks Ancel Keys but she herself was debunked by :
The White Paper, titled “Ancel Keys and the Seven Countries Study: An Evidence-Based Response to Revisionist Histories,” was written by Katherine Pett, Joel Kahn, Walter Willett, and David Katz (Willett and Katz, two of the nation’s leading nutrition experts.
By carefully reviewing original sources – and even communicating with some researchers involved in the Seven Countries Study – the authors thoroughly debunked four common misperceptions of the study by its detractors:
1. Keys cherry-picked countries that fit his data.
Detractors’ claim: Keys originally studied 22 countries, but only published data on the seven that backed up his original hypothesis.
The facts: There were never more than seven countries involved in the study.
2. France was purposely excluded.
Detractors’ claim: To avoid the French Paradox – whereby the French eat high levels of saturated fat but somehow have low rates of heart disease – Keys excluded France from his study.
The facts: Data that raised the question of the French Paradox didn’t exist until decades after the Seven Countries Study (SCS) began. France was, in fact, invited to participate in the SCS, but French researchers declined to participate.
3. Greek data, taken during Lent, didn’t reflect normal diet there.
Detractors’ claim: Greeks radically change their diet during Lent, so data collected then gave an unrealistic picture of what Greeks really eat.
The facts: Data were knowingly collected in Lent; records show no meaningful differences between foods eaten during Lent and at other times.
4. Sugar was ignored as a possible contributor to coronary heart disease.
Detractors’ claim: Keys’ actual data show sugar to be more strongly associated with heart disease than saturated fat, but he buried this “fact.”
The facts: Keys specifically addressed sugar intake in the SCS but found a stronger association with saturated fat.
GOOGLE "Ancel Keys and the Effect of Saturated Fats on Our Health" which says "a pattern emerged suggesting that a diet rich in saturated fats increases serum cholesterol levels, which Keys regarded as a major cause of coronary heart disease."
The lies about Ancel Keys continue on page 27 when Teicholz discusses a paper of his called “Atherosclerosis: A Problem in Newer Public Health” and says this paper received “enormous attention” and was the cause of America’s fear of fat.
According to Google Scholar this highly influential paper has only been cited 247 times since its publication, which spans 61 years as of this writing. An average of four citations per year. It was cited merely 99 times from the time it was published to 1973, a full twenty years after its publication. For comparison, on page 159-160 Teicholz mentions a study whose results she claims were “ignored.” That study was published in 1992 and has received 682 citations.
On page 34, Teicholz discusses a paper by Yerushalmy and Hilleboe that criticized a graph in Keys’s “Atherosclerosis: A Problem in Newer Public Health” paper mentioned above.13
Yerushalmy’s objection was that Keys seemed to have selected only certain countries that fit his hypothesis. There were other factors that could equally well explain the trends in heart disease in all these countries, he asserted.
If you actually read Keys’s paper you will note that Keys mentioned that he left out some less-developed countries because they had very poor vital health statistics.14 Some more developed European countries he claims he would have included if the Nazi’s had not very recently invaded, occupied, and rationed food which would confound his simple cross-sectional analysis. It wasn’t that he was a diabolical scientist bent on lying to the public about the cause of heart disease.
At any rate, Yerushalmy and Hilleboe did indeed point out some other factors in their paper, most prominently they pointed out that both animal fat and animal protein were far better correlated with heart disease than total fat. Many different types of heart disease, in fact. This held true whether or not it was calculated as total amounts or as a percentage of total calories. Moreover, vegetable protein and vegetable fat were negatively correlated with heart disease.
Of course there was no way that Teicholz, the professional meat lobbyist , was going to mention this!!!! (source: YouTube "Worst Of The Ketogenic Diet Gurus #3: Nina Teicholz & Denise Minger 28:26 into the video )
P 40 BFS says
"Keys had sampled the diets on Crete and Corfu more than once, in different seasons, in order to capture variations in the food eaten. Yet in an astonishing oversight, one of the three surveys on Crete fell during the forty-eight-day fasting period of Lent."
Key's study says: " The seasonal comparisons in Crete and Corfu were of interest because the survey in Crete in February and part of the survey in Corfu in March-April were in the 40-day fasting period of Lent of the Greek Orthodox church, but strict adherence did not seem to be common in the populations of the present study."
They simply compared the dietary data collected during the spring(lent) with the dietary data collected during other times of the year. The researchers also collected the actual foods eaten by participants, lyophilized them, and sent them out for chemical analysis AND FOUND NO DIFFERENCE .
Clearly Teicholz is desperately searching for any hint of impropriety. She discovered a mention of Lent and enthusiastically proclaimed that she had unearthed some alarming facts about the study to invalidate its findings that eating meat, cheese and butter cause heart disease.
The Keys equation predicts the effect of saturated and polyunsaturated fatty acids in the diet on serum cholesterol levels. Keys found that saturated fats increase total and LDL cholesterol twice as much as polyunsaturated fats lower them.
Keys championed the Mediterranean Diet (high in unsaturated fats and full of legumes, whole grains, fruits, vegetables, and nuts) and, following his own dietary and lifestyle advice, he lived until just short of his 101st birthday- unassailable evidence that his diet was correct.
The meat industry does not want you to know about the painful arthritis you'll face in old age or that: "Several studies have shown improvements in RA(rhumatoid arthritis ) symptoms with diets excluding animal products. Studies have also shown that dietary fiber found in these plant-based foods can improve gut bacteria composition and increase bacterial diversity in RA patients, thus reducing their inflammation and joint pain. Although some of the trigger foods in RA patients are individualized, a vegan diet helps improve symptoms by eliminating many of these foods." (source https www ncbi nlm nih gov/pmc/articles/PMC6746966/ )
When asked "what evidence do you have that meat is healthy?" She can not cite any specific study but makes vague references about a study where participants ate 1/2 OUNCE of meat per day.
When a study or a meta analysis of studies is published by vegan doctors that shows animal-based diets lead to chronic diseases Teicholz , unable to refute the soundness of the methodology or present any facts to the contrary calls then "Vegan activists" and therefore biased and refuses to comment on the studies. Its an old industry lobbyist trick: If the opposition has facts to solid to refute make a personal attack on the person presenting those facts.
What matters is not the person presenting the facts but the facts themselves . If indeed their facts are inaccurate or biased then the Industry Lobbyist show be able to present facts that are more accurate and less biased .
To refused to examine with an opened mind each fact presented on it's own merit is to concede that you have no facts to refute them. If instead of presenting precise facts, you simply call your opponent a name is to concede defeat in the debate.
You can not have a democracy without civil debate . A debate is a hearing where BOTH sides civilly present their facts . The motive of the participants is irreverent and beyond the scope of the debate.
It is a trick of a defeated debater to go off whatever topic upon which facts are being presented and attack the motives of one's opponent.
So her calling vegan doctors " biased" is speculative and has no bearing on the validity of the facts they present .If she is calling them liars then she should be able to present facts that belie the fact they present.
Since she can not .Since she knows she will be made to look like a fool , She calls them biased and refues to comment on their studies
well I'm out of room I will have to continue in the comment section
Conclusion: All her "facts" are easily refuted .She has nothing better to replace existing science with and therefore we have to act on the observations of experts in their fields who obtained degrees in those fields . She has no degree in medicine or nutrition but refutes those who do.
The DGAC, the US Department of Health and Human Services, the Center for Science in the Public Interest, and others, including a petition signed by 180 scientists harshly criticized Teicholz' claims.
Teicholz is a meat industry lobbyist paid $144,000/yr to help "The US meat industry’s wildly successful, 40-year crusade to keep its hold on the American diet" She works for NAMI ( the entity formed when the American Institute and the National Agricultural Marketing Association merged ) and NMAI does NOT have your best interests at heart! They have THE MEAT INDUSTRY'S BEST INTERESTS AT HEART. (see: https www politico com/story/2015/10/the-money-behind-the-fight-over-healthy-eating-214517 for a detailed account of her transition from a journalist to a professional lobbyist )
https qz com/523255/the-us-meat-industrys-wildly-successful-40-year-crusade-to-keep-its-hold-on-the-american-diet/ says
"The efforts to keep Americans from lowering their meat intake include some important new allies. Nina Teicholz, author of The Big Fat Surprise: Why Butter, Meat and Cheese Belong in a Healthy Diet, and the Nutrition Coalition(a lobbying firm) , backed by John and Laura Arnold, billionaires from Texas whose fortunes are tied back to Enron, have joined in as major power players in the fight, according to an in-depth report from Politico.
Their key tactic: Attack the scientific methodology used by those recommending a drop in consumption."
and that's what Nina does in this book --Attack the scientific methodology. She is highly skilled at making you doubt the science and encouraging you that its safe to buy lots and lot of meat and dairy and she is well paid for this skill.
(Does Goodreads no longer allow links in reviews to protect Goodreads members or to protect lobbyist authors from being easily exposed for what they are ?)
The article continues "Promoting the consumption of lean red meat "is not what the science supports," said Walter Willet, head of the nutrition department at the Harvard School of Public Health.
"There is strong evidence that red meat consumption increases risk of diabetes, heart attacks, stroke and some cancers (especially processed meat), and there is not good evidence that this simply due to the fat content," he said.
In a report in October, the World Health Organization categorized red meat as "probably" cancer-causing. The same report also classified bacon. sausage and processed meats as carcinogenic.
Strong evidence from mostly prospective cohort studies but also randomized controlled trials has shown that eating patterns that include lower intake of meats as well as processed meats and processed poultry are associated with reduced risk of [cardiovascular disease] in adults. Moderate evidence indicates that these eating patterns are associated with reduced risk of obesity, type 2 diabetes, and some types of cancer in adults.
So why won't the government take a stronger stance on red meat? Pressure from the meat industry, most likely."
HOW NINA (PAID LOBBYIST) ATTACKS THE SCIENCE
Teicholz appeals to mothers by writing a chapter about how women and children are not adequately represented in studies that show her animal based diet is harmful. However, any study she might cite in favor of her animal based low-carb high fat diet has similar male:female ratios, and most don’t include children.
On page 11-12 Teicholz discusses the Masai tribe of Africa and how they consume quite a bit of milk daily yet have very low cholesterol She also mentions that they are not fat and they don’t have high blood pressure. SHE FAILS TO MENTION THAT THESE AFRICAN TRIBES WALK 30 MILES A DAY and burn 300-500 kcals/hour would be fat. The real crime here is one of omission.
A study by George Mann entitled “Atherosclerosis in the Masai” states the following:
"We find the Masai vessels do show extensive atherosclerosis; they show coronary intimal thickening which is equal to that seen in elderly Americans." Mann goes on to say that the reason why there are so few occlusions (the blockage or closing of a blood vessel) despite the extensive atherosclerosis is that the Masai’s blood vessels enlarge as they age. "
These are some VERY IMPORATANT POINTS that Teicholz VERY INTENTIONALLY CONCEALS.
So The Masai consume a ton of milk and likely a fair amount of meat and yet they do not have elevated cholesterol levels due to a unique biological mechanism. Despite the low cholesterol they still get atherosclerosis. Enough that men in their prime have the blood vessels of elderly Americans. Yet despite even this they manage to escape heart attacks because their vessels are larger than average. The Masai, therefore, are a unique people that do not live like we car divers do.
On page 14 Teicholz discussing a text by "Hrdlicka3,4" published near 1900 and states:
"The Native Americans he visited were eating a diet of predominantly meat, mainly from buffalo, yet, as Hrdlicka observed, they seemed to be spectacularly healthy and lived to a ripe old age."
However, if you go look at the text you will find that the diet of Native Americans is based around the most abundant crops in the Americas: CORN AND WHEAT. There are several pages devoted to describing the diet. Page 19 of Hrdlicka states :
"The principal article of diet among the Indians is maize, which is eaten in the form of bread of various kinds, or as mush, or boiled entire. It is also parched on charcoal and eaten thus, or is ground into a fine meal, which, sweetened, constitutes the nourishing pinole of some of the tribes. Wheat is used in similar ways but less extensively. Next in importance to corn and wheat in the Indian diet are meat and fat and BEANS. Meat is scarce."
The American plains Indians were also nomads who walked tremendous distances carrying their provisions on their backs ,THEY WHERE NOT CAR DRIVERS!!! (Teicholz INTENTIONALLY conceals this )
Page 15, Teicholz attempts to make the case that Africans living in British colonies nearly 100 years ago ate a ton of meat and had basically no cancer. As evidence for both of these claims she cites what amounts as a Letter by George Prentice a physician who worked in Southern Central Africa, in 1923.
"The British Medical Journal routinely carried reports from colonial physicians who, though experienced in diagnosing cancer at home, could find very little of it in the African colonies overseas. So few cases could be identified that “some seem to assume that it does not exist,”
If you bother to look at the look at the letter by Prentice right after he says" SOME seem to assume that cancer does not exist", he immediately states " this is both a false and dangerous belief that has led to a patient of mine dying of cancer because I myself believed that Africans did not get cancer when I was a younger doctor. I didn’t remove a breast tumor when I could and should have . My patient died because of this." Prentice continued " in addition to breast cancer I see other cancers regularly . I have also seen epithelioma of the face. In this case the eyelids and the whole of one eye were completely destroyed, and the bone of the eye socket was attacked; the case was inoperable. I have seen a tumor, fungating and evidently malignant, that had practically split the bones of the face, causing the eyes to bulge laterally and giving a strange chameleon look to the patient. It was inoperable. I have seen cancer of the left ovary that proved fatal. I believe I have seen cases of malignant disease of the liver, but as there was no autopsy the diagnosis was not confirmed. I have removed many large tumors of the testicle which, if not cancerous, are of a nature unknown to me. Keloids and fatty tumors are very common."
So if you read the letter IT'S CLEAR that Teicholz took Prentice’s words COMPLELELY OUT OF CONTEXT to make it appear he was communicating THE OPPOSITE of what he was actually communicating.
She’s also hoping that you,dear reader, won’t read the letter and realize she’s being wildly misleading you and even hypocritical in how she deals with studies and observations.
All she has been discussing so far in the book is very tenuous and unscientific but she is a highly skilled con artist and is well paid by the meat industry to make meat seem like it does not cause cancer or heart attacks. Good for the meat industry-bad for your health and the environment.
BFS page 22 says :
"Early evidence suggestively linking cholesterol to heart disease also came from animals. In 1913, the Russian pathologist Nikolaj Anitschkow reported that he could induce atherosclerotic-type lesions in rabbits by feeding them huge amounts of cholesterol."(note: this report was written in German Teicholz does not speak German also. The paper discusses experiments on animals such as rodents and chicks, not humans)
BTW:
Pigs have are omnivores with teeth , digestive tracts and organs similar to humans.
https www sciencedirect com/science/article/abs/pii/S0955286312000976 says
"Pigs fed saturated fat/cholesterol have a blunted hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal function, ARE INSULIN RESISTANT and have decreased expression of IRS-1, PGC1α and PPARα"
"Mastering Diabetes" by Khambutta clearly shows how saturated fats CAUSE INSULIN RESISTANCE.
On page 23 of BFS Teicholz writes the following:
"The notion that cholesterol in the diet would translate directly into higher cholesterol in the blood just seemed intuitively reasonable, and was introduced by two biochemists from Columbia University in 1937."
Teicholz attacks Ancel Keys but she herself was debunked by :
The White Paper, titled “Ancel Keys and the Seven Countries Study: An Evidence-Based Response to Revisionist Histories,” was written by Katherine Pett, Joel Kahn, Walter Willett, and David Katz (Willett and Katz, two of the nation’s leading nutrition experts.
By carefully reviewing original sources – and even communicating with some researchers involved in the Seven Countries Study – the authors thoroughly debunked four common misperceptions of the study by its detractors:
1. Keys cherry-picked countries that fit his data.
Detractors’ claim: Keys originally studied 22 countries, but only published data on the seven that backed up his original hypothesis.
The facts: There were never more than seven countries involved in the study.
2. France was purposely excluded.
Detractors’ claim: To avoid the French Paradox – whereby the French eat high levels of saturated fat but somehow have low rates of heart disease – Keys excluded France from his study.
The facts: Data that raised the question of the French Paradox didn’t exist until decades after the Seven Countries Study (SCS) began. France was, in fact, invited to participate in the SCS, but French researchers declined to participate.
3. Greek data, taken during Lent, didn’t reflect normal diet there.
Detractors’ claim: Greeks radically change their diet during Lent, so data collected then gave an unrealistic picture of what Greeks really eat.
The facts: Data were knowingly collected in Lent; records show no meaningful differences between foods eaten during Lent and at other times.
4. Sugar was ignored as a possible contributor to coronary heart disease.
Detractors’ claim: Keys’ actual data show sugar to be more strongly associated with heart disease than saturated fat, but he buried this “fact.”
The facts: Keys specifically addressed sugar intake in the SCS but found a stronger association with saturated fat.
GOOGLE "Ancel Keys and the Effect of Saturated Fats on Our Health" which says "a pattern emerged suggesting that a diet rich in saturated fats increases serum cholesterol levels, which Keys regarded as a major cause of coronary heart disease."
The lies about Ancel Keys continue on page 27 when Teicholz discusses a paper of his called “Atherosclerosis: A Problem in Newer Public Health” and says this paper received “enormous attention” and was the cause of America’s fear of fat.
According to Google Scholar this highly influential paper has only been cited 247 times since its publication, which spans 61 years as of this writing. An average of four citations per year. It was cited merely 99 times from the time it was published to 1973, a full twenty years after its publication. For comparison, on page 159-160 Teicholz mentions a study whose results she claims were “ignored.” That study was published in 1992 and has received 682 citations.
On page 34, Teicholz discusses a paper by Yerushalmy and Hilleboe that criticized a graph in Keys’s “Atherosclerosis: A Problem in Newer Public Health” paper mentioned above.13
Yerushalmy’s objection was that Keys seemed to have selected only certain countries that fit his hypothesis. There were other factors that could equally well explain the trends in heart disease in all these countries, he asserted.
If you actually read Keys’s paper you will note that Keys mentioned that he left out some less-developed countries because they had very poor vital health statistics.14 Some more developed European countries he claims he would have included if the Nazi’s had not very recently invaded, occupied, and rationed food which would confound his simple cross-sectional analysis. It wasn’t that he was a diabolical scientist bent on lying to the public about the cause of heart disease.
At any rate, Yerushalmy and Hilleboe did indeed point out some other factors in their paper, most prominently they pointed out that both animal fat and animal protein were far better correlated with heart disease than total fat. Many different types of heart disease, in fact. This held true whether or not it was calculated as total amounts or as a percentage of total calories. Moreover, vegetable protein and vegetable fat were negatively correlated with heart disease.
Of course there was no way that Teicholz, the professional meat lobbyist , was going to mention this!!!! (source: YouTube "Worst Of The Ketogenic Diet Gurus #3: Nina Teicholz & Denise Minger 28:26 into the video )
P 40 BFS says
"Keys had sampled the diets on Crete and Corfu more than once, in different seasons, in order to capture variations in the food eaten. Yet in an astonishing oversight, one of the three surveys on Crete fell during the forty-eight-day fasting period of Lent."
Key's study says: " The seasonal comparisons in Crete and Corfu were of interest because the survey in Crete in February and part of the survey in Corfu in March-April were in the 40-day fasting period of Lent of the Greek Orthodox church, but strict adherence did not seem to be common in the populations of the present study."
They simply compared the dietary data collected during the spring(lent) with the dietary data collected during other times of the year. The researchers also collected the actual foods eaten by participants, lyophilized them, and sent them out for chemical analysis AND FOUND NO DIFFERENCE .
Clearly Teicholz is desperately searching for any hint of impropriety. She discovered a mention of Lent and enthusiastically proclaimed that she had unearthed some alarming facts about the study to invalidate its findings that eating meat, cheese and butter cause heart disease.
The Keys equation predicts the effect of saturated and polyunsaturated fatty acids in the diet on serum cholesterol levels. Keys found that saturated fats increase total and LDL cholesterol twice as much as polyunsaturated fats lower them.
Keys championed the Mediterranean Diet (high in unsaturated fats and full of legumes, whole grains, fruits, vegetables, and nuts) and, following his own dietary and lifestyle advice, he lived until just short of his 101st birthday- unassailable evidence that his diet was correct.
The meat industry does not want you to know about the painful arthritis you'll face in old age or that: "Several studies have shown improvements in RA(rhumatoid arthritis ) symptoms with diets excluding animal products. Studies have also shown that dietary fiber found in these plant-based foods can improve gut bacteria composition and increase bacterial diversity in RA patients, thus reducing their inflammation and joint pain. Although some of the trigger foods in RA patients are individualized, a vegan diet helps improve symptoms by eliminating many of these foods." (source https www ncbi nlm nih gov/pmc/articles/PMC6746966/ )
When asked "what evidence do you have that meat is healthy?" She can not cite any specific study but makes vague references about a study where participants ate 1/2 OUNCE of meat per day.
When a study or a meta analysis of studies is published by vegan doctors that shows animal-based diets lead to chronic diseases Teicholz , unable to refute the soundness of the methodology or present any facts to the contrary calls then "Vegan activists" and therefore biased and refuses to comment on the studies. Its an old industry lobbyist trick: If the opposition has facts to solid to refute make a personal attack on the person presenting those facts.
What matters is not the person presenting the facts but the facts themselves . If indeed their facts are inaccurate or biased then the Industry Lobbyist show be able to present facts that are more accurate and less biased .
To refused to examine with an opened mind each fact presented on it's own merit is to concede that you have no facts to refute them. If instead of presenting precise facts, you simply call your opponent a name is to concede defeat in the debate.
You can not have a democracy without civil debate . A debate is a hearing where BOTH sides civilly present their facts . The motive of the participants is irreverent and beyond the scope of the debate.
It is a trick of a defeated debater to go off whatever topic upon which facts are being presented and attack the motives of one's opponent.
So her calling vegan doctors " biased" is speculative and has no bearing on the validity of the facts they present .If she is calling them liars then she should be able to present facts that belie the fact they present.
Since she can not .Since she knows she will be made to look like a fool , She calls them biased and refues to comment on their studies
well I'm out of room I will have to continue in the comment section
Conclusion: All her "facts" are easily refuted .She has nothing better to replace existing science with and therefore we have to act on the observations of experts in their fields who obtained degrees in those fields . She has no degree in medicine or nutrition but refutes those who do.
August 30, 2018
This book is going to set nutrition experts and to a lesser degree medical experts back on their defensive heels. Everything we have been told by the powerful American Heart Association (AHA) about heart health has been wrong. A man named Ansel Keys had established with faulty studies and a persistent personality that saturated fats lead to heart disease. He instituted these beliefs in the AHA as the AHA began as an organization.
Other well done studies contradict Ansel Keys but they were ignored and criticized by Keys and others who believed in Keys assertions. As Americans got fatter, diabetes increased and heart disease increased fortunately more attention was paid attention to the recommended nutrition standards and the famous food pyramid.
Studies have proved that carbohydrates make you fat. The human body burns carbohydrates before it will burn fat from your body. So if you reduce carbohydrates and increase healthy fats you will lose weight when you eat. Healthy Fats include meat, fish, bacon, avocadoes, cheese and eggs. You should not eat refined carbohydrates such as white bread, white rice, pasta, cookies, pancakes and waffles. Most vegetables are carbohydrates. They are what you should consume as a small part of your diet. Broccoli, sweet potatoes, spinach, carrots and other vegetable carbohydrates contain many nutrients that the body uses.
Another finding was that high cholesterol may be a good thing. Studies found people with higher cholesterol lived longer than those with low cholesterol. In one famous study of violent criminals who had their cholesterol levels checked that 11 out of 12 had very bad cholesterol readings. Cholesterol protects the brain so it’s thought these criminals had brain abnormalities that caused them to be violent.
Dr. Robert Atkins is praised in this book because he knew in the 1970’s that carbohydrates were the real cause of weight gain and diabetes.
Olive Oil is the only oil to cook with that has no harmful effects. Apparently most other cooking oils are oxidized. These oxidized fats cause inflammation and mutation in cells. That oxidation is linked to all sorts of issues from cancer, heart disease, endometriosis, PCOS, etc.
The benefits of eating a high fat low carb diet include weight loss, gaining extra energy and a sense of fulfillment when you finish eating.
One final statement, some in the medical community think that heart disease is caused by sugar not saturated fats.
Other well done studies contradict Ansel Keys but they were ignored and criticized by Keys and others who believed in Keys assertions. As Americans got fatter, diabetes increased and heart disease increased fortunately more attention was paid attention to the recommended nutrition standards and the famous food pyramid.
Studies have proved that carbohydrates make you fat. The human body burns carbohydrates before it will burn fat from your body. So if you reduce carbohydrates and increase healthy fats you will lose weight when you eat. Healthy Fats include meat, fish, bacon, avocadoes, cheese and eggs. You should not eat refined carbohydrates such as white bread, white rice, pasta, cookies, pancakes and waffles. Most vegetables are carbohydrates. They are what you should consume as a small part of your diet. Broccoli, sweet potatoes, spinach, carrots and other vegetable carbohydrates contain many nutrients that the body uses.
Another finding was that high cholesterol may be a good thing. Studies found people with higher cholesterol lived longer than those with low cholesterol. In one famous study of violent criminals who had their cholesterol levels checked that 11 out of 12 had very bad cholesterol readings. Cholesterol protects the brain so it’s thought these criminals had brain abnormalities that caused them to be violent.
Dr. Robert Atkins is praised in this book because he knew in the 1970’s that carbohydrates were the real cause of weight gain and diabetes.
Olive Oil is the only oil to cook with that has no harmful effects. Apparently most other cooking oils are oxidized. These oxidized fats cause inflammation and mutation in cells. That oxidation is linked to all sorts of issues from cancer, heart disease, endometriosis, PCOS, etc.
The benefits of eating a high fat low carb diet include weight loss, gaining extra energy and a sense of fulfillment when you finish eating.
One final statement, some in the medical community think that heart disease is caused by sugar not saturated fats.
March 1, 2015
My first DNF this year. I've only had two in the last year.
I had a tiny suspicion I wasn't going to like this when I read what this book was about. I picked it up anyway because a part of me usually enjoys books like this.
I got about 100 pages into it and just couldn't do it any more. She says she was but a humble food critic or whatever....I had a hard time buying that because this book was so so so incredibly slanted. I wanted to know if private parties helped her fund this book and all the research. That is such a pet peeve of mine when it is so blatantly one sided, but what is worse, is when the author slams others(and their research). I always feel that is not necessary because it makes them look bad. You don't have to push others down to look good....it doesn't work that way.
I have teenagers. When they speak I am constantly trying to read between the lines to figure out the part they aren't telling me. And that is EXACTLY how I felt reading this. It was too much effort and work!!!!
June 15, 2018
This was a really informative book about how the nutirtion industry and scientific community that support them are essentially either corrupt or just so egotistical that they believe their own poor evidence to support their claims.
Before i bought this book I first heard the author on the Joe Rogan podcast and she really knows a lot of about the science behind nutrition, so when i bought this book i was expecting the same however, i would say only about 10% of it is about the nutritional science the rest politics and investigative journalism. A tough read, but nonetheless very interesting.
Before i bought this book I first heard the author on the Joe Rogan podcast and she really knows a lot of about the science behind nutrition, so when i bought this book i was expecting the same however, i would say only about 10% of it is about the nutritional science the rest politics and investigative journalism. A tough read, but nonetheless very interesting.
February 12, 2022
As a member of Radha Soami Sat Sang I know millions of people who are lean , strong , heathy and happy after decades on a vegan diet I myself have been vegan for over 10 years. If anyone tells you you need meat to be lean and healthy, they are telling a lie that will benefit the meat industry in the short term then make it suffer dur to droughts caused by deforestation.77% of all deforestation is to make room for cattle farming .
Keto Gurus like - Nina Teicholz - will go down in ignominy as we look back in 2050 on the devastation wreaked on our planet by the meat industry for which she lobbies and which she promotes by TREACHEROUSLY casting dispersions on strictly scientific studies by the most astute and rigorous scientists in their field .These include Cyrus Khambutta who got a PHD in nutrition with the intent of finding a cure for diabetes. Meanwhile what degree does she have ? None . What scientific studies has she conducted ? NONE. She just has a capacity to divert your attention from the catastrophic deforestation (see times lapse satellite images TIME LAPSE SATELLITE IMAGES
https www youtube com/watch?v=b4eLTYUcj7k&t=4s
77% of this deforestation is for cattle farming
https www youtube com/watch?v=L9zWDtDKDS8
This deforestation is causing mega droughts like these :
https www youtube com/watch?v=w3YYH7hQTT8
https www youtube com/watch?v=K9hUNufKIKw
https www youtube com/watch?v=kYsrGaHX7M4
Drought in Bazil
https www youtube com/watch?v=6rQmG-koEPI&t=96s
east Africa
https www youtube com/watch?v=22V83YIhVVc
https www youtube com/watch?v=CFUktIz40TI
This is how deforestation from cattle farming causes droughts
The Biotic Pump: How Forests Create Rain
https www youtube com/watch?v=kKL40aBg-7E
Which Came First — the Rain or Rainforests?
https www youtube com/watch?v=Y3OWgb0Bv-A
TIECHOLZ IS A WELL PAID LOBBYIST FOR THE CATTLE INDUSTRY
She truthfully says she never received money{directly} from the food industry for her political lobbying and marketing of meat , cheese and butter to the public . Because the money is routed through the Arnold's . According to public records her salary is 144,000.00 per year for 40 hours per week (source : Nutrition Coalition :Executives listed on filing .A photo of this document is listed here : https www youtube com/watch?v=VK5ApjZdPEo at 28:50 into the video
So how does it feel knowing that she is being paid (Via the Arnolds ) to promote meat , cheese and butter and attack honest scientists with degrees in their fields for the benefit of the cattle industry (not yours ) ?
Does that put a new light on things ?
https://qz.com/523255/the-us-meat-ind... syas
The efforts to keep Americans from lowering their meat intake include some important new allies. Nina Teicholz, author of The Big Fat Surprise: Why Butter, Meat and Cheese Belong in a Healthy Diet, and the Nutrition Coalition, backed by John and Laura Arnold, billionaires from Texas whose fortunes are tied back to Enron, have joined in as major power players in the fight, according to an in-depth report from Politico.
Their key tactic: Attack the scientific methodology used by those recommending a drop in consumption.
According to Politico, before the Nutrition Coalition was officially formed, Teicholz attended a meeting with representatives for ConAgra, the Grocery Manufacturers Association, and the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, among others, to talk about whether criticizing the guidelines from the scientific standpoint would “create new opportunities” for rewriting the recommendations. Since then, Politico reports, Teicholz also has met with USDA staff, House Agriculture Appropriations chairman Robert Aderholt (R-Ala.), and Debra Eschmeyer, a senior nutrition policy adviser to Michelle Obama and the executive director of the first lady’s health initiative, Lets Move!. Teicholz, who describes herself as an investigative journalist, tells Quartz she has not taken money from the food industry for these activities.
Following her op-eds in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal about why Americans need more meat, dairy, and eggs in their diets, Teicholz also recently published a feature report in BMJ, formerly known as the British Medical Journal, directly questioning the scientific approach behind this year’s USDA/HHS advisory report. (She also argued that sustainability was irrelevant to the guidelines.) The BMJ story was underwritten by the Arnolds, who Politico reports “are spending an initial $200,000 to communicate [the scientific] critique” of the guidelines submitted by the government’s advisory panel.
The article has been widely criticized by nutrition experts for its many inaccuracies, both large and small. (BMJ told Quartz that the article was fact-checked “in line with our usual procedures” but did not respond to inquiries as to whether any corrections would be forthcoming.)
It is far from the only instance of the government’s expert panel being attacked for its methods. Republican lawmaker Mike Conaway of Texas, who chairs the House Committee on Agriculture and hails from the largest cattle-producing state in the country, wrote an op-ed for U.S. News & World Report echoing Teicholz’s article for BMJ by questioning the science behind the advisory group’s conclusions, as well as its decision to include sustainability as a factor in its recommendations. And as James Hamblin wrote in The Atlantic, at the recent Congressional hearing on the guidelines, lawmakers spent a
https://www.politico.com/story/2015/1...
Says “The money behind the fight over healthy eating
By CHASE PURDY and HELENA BOTTEMILLER EVICH 10/07/2015 02:46 PM EDT
When Nina Teicholz called out the authors of the federal dietary recommendations for shoddy science and conflicts of interest in a prominent medical journal late last month, she left out some key details about herself.
While she presents herself as a journalist, her approach is more crusading than impartial. Her most recent book is a take-down of the nutrition establishment called, “The Big Fat Surprise: Why Butter, Meat and Cheese Belong in a Healthy Diet,” which advocates the health benefits of a high-fat diet – considered heresy in many quarters. She hands out signed copies like calling cards in meetings with lawmakers and high-ranking administration officials such as Agriculture Department Secretary Tom Vilsack.
She’s also an organizer of a fledgling group that is engaged in a vigorous advocacy campaign to reshape how the U.S. government determines what makes a healthy diet. That effort is being bankrolled by billionaire Houston philanthropists, John and Laura Arnold—who also underwrote her article in the British Medical Journal, which she does disclose.
The lobbying alarms some who fear it will further politicize a process that informs nearly every aspect of how Americans eat, from what millions of school children are fed each day and the advice doctors give to their patients.
“It’s dangerous and it’s harmful,” Dietary Guidelines panel member Barbara Millen said of the campaign.
In the lead up to congressional hearings on the 2015 Dietary Guidelines, the Arnolds are spending an initial $200,000 to communicate that critique and to advocate for changes that they say would improve the process. They have funded the new group, called The Nutrition Coalition, whose well-placed lobbyists have helped Teicholz score face-to-face meetings with top officials in Congress and the White House to push for an independent review of the guideline process. The team helped persuade lawmakers to insert language in the fiscal 2016 House agriculture spending bill to direct the National Academy of Medicine to conduct such a review.
Kristina Butts, a lobbyist for the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, led a discussion on “current Hill strategies,” according to the program. A key question was whether a critique of the Dietary Guidelines from a “purely scientific and methodological perspective would create new opportunities” for changing the guidelines.
Nutrition Coalition is born
Sometime after that meeting, the separate Nutrition Coalition -- funded solely by the Arnolds’ Action Now Initiative -- started to take shape, several sources told POLITICO. The Nutrition Coalition does not allow industry funding or membership.
Laura Arnold said the initial commitment was about $200,000 but “the broader nutrition science agenda, if you will, is certainly a long-term play because frankly we don’t have any answers.”
Besides Teicholz, the board includes New York University health policy professor John Billing and Cheryl Achterberg, dean of the College of Education and Human Ecology at Ohio State and a 2010 Dietary Guidelines panelist, the group announced Tuesday. It also has an advisory board, including two other former Dietary Guidelines committee members, and a five-member medical council made up of doctors.
Its stated mission is “ensuring that national nutrition policy is based on rigorous science.”
The coalition's views are much broader than Teicholz', although she is a central if contentious figure. It includes roughly a dozen doctors, nutritionists and other leading experts, many of whom offer differing views on the science of a healthy diet or what exactly makes people obese. But the members agree that the process of crafting the guidelines needs to be improved.
Three months before its official unveiling, the coalition had already hired S-3 Group, a lobbying shop. The firm, which counts Google, Halliburton, the National Rifle Association and the National Chicken Council as clients, includes former Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s Chief of Staff Rob Collins, former House Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee Staff Director Martin Delgado, and former senior House Appropriations Committee aide John Scofield, all Republicans.
The lobbyists set up meetings for Teicholz with several lawmakers, including House Agriculture Appropriations Chairman Robert Aderholt (R-Ala.) and Senate and House agriculture committee staff. They got language inserted into the fiscal 2016 House agriculture spending bill to direct the National Academy of Medicine to conduct an independent review of the Dietary Guidelines process, Scofield said.
“We’re not looking to derail the guidelines,” Scofield told POLITICO. “Our goal is to make the case that an objective review is necessary. It’s not something anybody should be afraid of.”
Teicholz alluded to the language in her British Medical Journal piece.
“They portray the science as being settled … that everything is certain and for sure,” she said in an interview, referring to the Dietary Guidelines panel’s recommendations. “The science is not settled on these points. Scientists are debating these topics.”
In the past few weeks, Teicholz and her lobbying team also paid a visit to the East Wing to meet with Debra Eschmeyer, executive director of first lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! campaign and a senior policy adviser on nutrition. They also stopped by the USDA to meet with staff.
There is a very long book review where Seth Yonder takes the book chapter by chapter and claim by claim made by Teicholz
https thedietwars com/the-big-fat-surprise-a-critical-review-part-1-by-seth-yoder/
The extremely long review is broken down into 2 parts its longer then her book. It treats her alot kinder than I would.
I read enough to know there is something thoroughly unhealthy going on that is serving the meat industry
Keto Gurus like - Nina Teicholz - will go down in ignominy as we look back in 2050 on the devastation wreaked on our planet by the meat industry for which she lobbies and which she promotes by TREACHEROUSLY casting dispersions on strictly scientific studies by the most astute and rigorous scientists in their field .These include Cyrus Khambutta who got a PHD in nutrition with the intent of finding a cure for diabetes. Meanwhile what degree does she have ? None . What scientific studies has she conducted ? NONE. She just has a capacity to divert your attention from the catastrophic deforestation (see times lapse satellite images TIME LAPSE SATELLITE IMAGES
https www youtube com/watch?v=b4eLTYUcj7k&t=4s
77% of this deforestation is for cattle farming
https www youtube com/watch?v=L9zWDtDKDS8
This deforestation is causing mega droughts like these :
https www youtube com/watch?v=w3YYH7hQTT8
https www youtube com/watch?v=K9hUNufKIKw
https www youtube com/watch?v=kYsrGaHX7M4
Drought in Bazil
https www youtube com/watch?v=6rQmG-koEPI&t=96s
east Africa
https www youtube com/watch?v=22V83YIhVVc
https www youtube com/watch?v=CFUktIz40TI
This is how deforestation from cattle farming causes droughts
The Biotic Pump: How Forests Create Rain
https www youtube com/watch?v=kKL40aBg-7E
Which Came First — the Rain or Rainforests?
https www youtube com/watch?v=Y3OWgb0Bv-A
TIECHOLZ IS A WELL PAID LOBBYIST FOR THE CATTLE INDUSTRY
She truthfully says she never received money{directly} from the food industry for her political lobbying and marketing of meat , cheese and butter to the public . Because the money is routed through the Arnold's . According to public records her salary is 144,000.00 per year for 40 hours per week (source : Nutrition Coalition :Executives listed on filing .A photo of this document is listed here : https www youtube com/watch?v=VK5ApjZdPEo at 28:50 into the video
So how does it feel knowing that she is being paid (Via the Arnolds ) to promote meat , cheese and butter and attack honest scientists with degrees in their fields for the benefit of the cattle industry (not yours ) ?
Does that put a new light on things ?
https://qz.com/523255/the-us-meat-ind... syas
The efforts to keep Americans from lowering their meat intake include some important new allies. Nina Teicholz, author of The Big Fat Surprise: Why Butter, Meat and Cheese Belong in a Healthy Diet, and the Nutrition Coalition, backed by John and Laura Arnold, billionaires from Texas whose fortunes are tied back to Enron, have joined in as major power players in the fight, according to an in-depth report from Politico.
Their key tactic: Attack the scientific methodology used by those recommending a drop in consumption.
According to Politico, before the Nutrition Coalition was officially formed, Teicholz attended a meeting with representatives for ConAgra, the Grocery Manufacturers Association, and the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, among others, to talk about whether criticizing the guidelines from the scientific standpoint would “create new opportunities” for rewriting the recommendations. Since then, Politico reports, Teicholz also has met with USDA staff, House Agriculture Appropriations chairman Robert Aderholt (R-Ala.), and Debra Eschmeyer, a senior nutrition policy adviser to Michelle Obama and the executive director of the first lady’s health initiative, Lets Move!. Teicholz, who describes herself as an investigative journalist, tells Quartz she has not taken money from the food industry for these activities.
Following her op-eds in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal about why Americans need more meat, dairy, and eggs in their diets, Teicholz also recently published a feature report in BMJ, formerly known as the British Medical Journal, directly questioning the scientific approach behind this year’s USDA/HHS advisory report. (She also argued that sustainability was irrelevant to the guidelines.) The BMJ story was underwritten by the Arnolds, who Politico reports “are spending an initial $200,000 to communicate [the scientific] critique” of the guidelines submitted by the government’s advisory panel.
The article has been widely criticized by nutrition experts for its many inaccuracies, both large and small. (BMJ told Quartz that the article was fact-checked “in line with our usual procedures” but did not respond to inquiries as to whether any corrections would be forthcoming.)
It is far from the only instance of the government’s expert panel being attacked for its methods. Republican lawmaker Mike Conaway of Texas, who chairs the House Committee on Agriculture and hails from the largest cattle-producing state in the country, wrote an op-ed for U.S. News & World Report echoing Teicholz’s article for BMJ by questioning the science behind the advisory group’s conclusions, as well as its decision to include sustainability as a factor in its recommendations. And as James Hamblin wrote in The Atlantic, at the recent Congressional hearing on the guidelines, lawmakers spent a
https://www.politico.com/story/2015/1...
Says “The money behind the fight over healthy eating
By CHASE PURDY and HELENA BOTTEMILLER EVICH 10/07/2015 02:46 PM EDT
When Nina Teicholz called out the authors of the federal dietary recommendations for shoddy science and conflicts of interest in a prominent medical journal late last month, she left out some key details about herself.
While she presents herself as a journalist, her approach is more crusading than impartial. Her most recent book is a take-down of the nutrition establishment called, “The Big Fat Surprise: Why Butter, Meat and Cheese Belong in a Healthy Diet,” which advocates the health benefits of a high-fat diet – considered heresy in many quarters. She hands out signed copies like calling cards in meetings with lawmakers and high-ranking administration officials such as Agriculture Department Secretary Tom Vilsack.
She’s also an organizer of a fledgling group that is engaged in a vigorous advocacy campaign to reshape how the U.S. government determines what makes a healthy diet. That effort is being bankrolled by billionaire Houston philanthropists, John and Laura Arnold—who also underwrote her article in the British Medical Journal, which she does disclose.
The lobbying alarms some who fear it will further politicize a process that informs nearly every aspect of how Americans eat, from what millions of school children are fed each day and the advice doctors give to their patients.
“It’s dangerous and it’s harmful,” Dietary Guidelines panel member Barbara Millen said of the campaign.
In the lead up to congressional hearings on the 2015 Dietary Guidelines, the Arnolds are spending an initial $200,000 to communicate that critique and to advocate for changes that they say would improve the process. They have funded the new group, called The Nutrition Coalition, whose well-placed lobbyists have helped Teicholz score face-to-face meetings with top officials in Congress and the White House to push for an independent review of the guideline process. The team helped persuade lawmakers to insert language in the fiscal 2016 House agriculture spending bill to direct the National Academy of Medicine to conduct such a review.
Kristina Butts, a lobbyist for the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, led a discussion on “current Hill strategies,” according to the program. A key question was whether a critique of the Dietary Guidelines from a “purely scientific and methodological perspective would create new opportunities” for changing the guidelines.
Nutrition Coalition is born
Sometime after that meeting, the separate Nutrition Coalition -- funded solely by the Arnolds’ Action Now Initiative -- started to take shape, several sources told POLITICO. The Nutrition Coalition does not allow industry funding or membership.
Laura Arnold said the initial commitment was about $200,000 but “the broader nutrition science agenda, if you will, is certainly a long-term play because frankly we don’t have any answers.”
Besides Teicholz, the board includes New York University health policy professor John Billing and Cheryl Achterberg, dean of the College of Education and Human Ecology at Ohio State and a 2010 Dietary Guidelines panelist, the group announced Tuesday. It also has an advisory board, including two other former Dietary Guidelines committee members, and a five-member medical council made up of doctors.
Its stated mission is “ensuring that national nutrition policy is based on rigorous science.”
The coalition's views are much broader than Teicholz', although she is a central if contentious figure. It includes roughly a dozen doctors, nutritionists and other leading experts, many of whom offer differing views on the science of a healthy diet or what exactly makes people obese. But the members agree that the process of crafting the guidelines needs to be improved.
Three months before its official unveiling, the coalition had already hired S-3 Group, a lobbying shop. The firm, which counts Google, Halliburton, the National Rifle Association and the National Chicken Council as clients, includes former Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s Chief of Staff Rob Collins, former House Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee Staff Director Martin Delgado, and former senior House Appropriations Committee aide John Scofield, all Republicans.
The lobbyists set up meetings for Teicholz with several lawmakers, including House Agriculture Appropriations Chairman Robert Aderholt (R-Ala.) and Senate and House agriculture committee staff. They got language inserted into the fiscal 2016 House agriculture spending bill to direct the National Academy of Medicine to conduct an independent review of the Dietary Guidelines process, Scofield said.
“We’re not looking to derail the guidelines,” Scofield told POLITICO. “Our goal is to make the case that an objective review is necessary. It’s not something anybody should be afraid of.”
Teicholz alluded to the language in her British Medical Journal piece.
“They portray the science as being settled … that everything is certain and for sure,” she said in an interview, referring to the Dietary Guidelines panel’s recommendations. “The science is not settled on these points. Scientists are debating these topics.”
In the past few weeks, Teicholz and her lobbying team also paid a visit to the East Wing to meet with Debra Eschmeyer, executive director of first lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! campaign and a senior policy adviser on nutrition. They also stopped by the USDA to meet with staff.
There is a very long book review where Seth Yonder takes the book chapter by chapter and claim by claim made by Teicholz
https thedietwars com/the-big-fat-surprise-a-critical-review-part-1-by-seth-yoder/
The extremely long review is broken down into 2 parts its longer then her book. It treats her alot kinder than I would.
I read enough to know there is something thoroughly unhealthy going on that is serving the meat industry
October 30, 2019
สิ่งที่เซอร์ไพร์สมาก คือการที่หนังสือไม่ได้เอาแต่จะโยนข้อมูลใส่และหว่านล้อมให้เราเชื่อใน Argument หลักของหนังสืออย่างเดียว แต่หนังสือเลือกจะเล่าในประเด็นที่หลายๆ คนก็น่าจะสงสัย
เช่น ทำไมความรู้เกี่ยวกับ Nutrition หลายๆ อย่างมันถึงกลับไปกลับมา? (e.g. เมื่อก่อนเราเชื่อกันว่าไขมันอิ่มตัวเป็นต้นเหตุของโรคหลายๆ อย่าง เราถูกสอนให้ ‘ขจัดไขมันอิ่มตัวออกไปจากชีวิต และหันไปกินไขมันพืชหรือคาร์โบไฮเดรตแทน’ แต่ไปๆ มาๆ กลับมีงานวิจัยที่ออกมาบอกว่า ‘มากินไขมันอิ่มตัวกันเถอะ’ อะไรทำนองนั้น) , ทำไมความรู้หลายๆ อย่างซึ่งปัจจุบันได้รับการพิสูจน์แล้วว่าเป็น Myth ถึงสามารถอยู่ยงมาได้เป็นสิบๆ ปี? ทำไมแม้แต่คนในวงการเองก็ยังหลงเชื่อความรู้ที่เป็น Myth แบบนั้นอยู่เนิ่นนาน?
ซึ่งพออ่านหนังสือเล่มนี้แล้ว ก็รู้สึกว่าได้คลายข้อสงสัยหลายๆ อย่างไป และมันเป็นข้อมูลอีกด้านที่ผมไม่เคยรู้มาก่อน (แต่ต้องดอกจันทร์ตัวโตๆ ไว้ก่อนว่าส่วนตัวแล้วไม่ใช่คนในวงการและไม่ได้รักสุขภาพอะไรมากมายนะครับ บวกกับสมัยวัยรุ่นก็ตกวิทยาศาสตร์ทั้งมิดเทอมและไฟนอล ทำให้ความสามารถในการแยกแยะจริงเท็จจึงอาจจะมีไม่มากนัก และทุกอย่างก็อาจจะดูเป็นความรู้ใหม่สำหรับผมไปหมดนั่นแหละ)
ในช่วงต้นของหนังสือ ผู้เขียนเล่าย้อนไปในช่วที่ Heart disease กำลังเป็นปัญหาใหญ่ของคนอเมริกันอย่างมาก รัฐบาลและหน่วยงานที่เกี่ยวข้องจึงให้ทุนมหาศาลแก่นักวิจัย เพื่อไปทำการศึกษาหาสาเหตุของ Heart disease
ซึ่งการวิจัยของนักวิทยาศาสตร์ท่านหนึ่ง (ที่จะโดนโจมตีหนักมากในหนังสือเล่มนี้) ทำให้หวยมันมาลงที่ ‘ไขมันอิ่มตัว’ ว่าเป็นสาเหตุของโรค แต่ที่น่าแปลกคือ มีนักวิทยาศาสตร์หลายคนในยุคนั้นที่มองว่าผลลัพท์จากงานวิจัยนี้ค่อนข้างน่าสงสัย และกระบวนการต่างๆ ก็ยังไม่ Valid พอ
เช่น กลุ่มตัวอย่างในงานวิจัยไม่ได้ถูกเลือกมาแบบสุ่มอย่างที่ควรจะเป็น แต่ตัวนักวิจัยพยายามเลือกกลุ่มตัวอย่างที่มีแนวโน้มจะสนับสนุนสมมติฐานของตัวเองเท่านั้น, ผลลัพท์ที่ออกมานั้นเป็นแค่ Correlation ไม่ใช่ Causation (และเป็น Correlation แบบอ่อนมากๆ ด้วย เพราะกลุ่มตัวอย่างถูกคัดมาด้วยอคติ) และเหตุผลอื่นๆ อีกมากมาย
เมื่อพิจารณาจากกระบวนการวิจัยที่ไม่น่าเชื่อถือเหล่านี้แล้ว เราอาจคิดว่าผลลัพท์จากงานวิจัยนี้ก็น่าจะถูกจับได้ว่าเป็น Myth และตีตกไปอย่างรวดเร็ว แต่ความจริงกลับไมได้เป็นเช่นนั้น ด้วยเหตุผลหลายๆ อย่าง อาทิ
1. ในสมัยนั้น Heart disease เป็นโรคที่น่ากังวลมากๆ ของสังคมอเมริกัน (ยุคของ Eisenhower) และนักวิจัยได้รับทุนมหาศาลจากหน่วยงานด้านสุขภาพเพื่อทำการหาสาเหตุของโรคนี้ นักวิจัยจึงตกอยู่ในสภาพกดดันอย่างหนักที่ต้องหาคำตอบอะไรสักอย่างมาให้กับประชาชนและผู้นำประเทศ ส่งผลให้นักวิจัยใช้อคติในกระบวนการทดลองเพื่อให้ตัวเองได้ผลสรุปโดยเร็ว
เช่น การเลือกทดสอบเฉพาะกลุ่มตัวอย่างที่จะสนับสนุนสมมติฐานตั้งต้นของตัวเอง (ซึ่งผิดหลัก เพราะนักวิจัยควรจะตั้งข้อสงสัยต่อสมมติฐานของตัวเองให้มากเข้าไว้ แล้วค่อยหาทางพิสูจน์ว่ามันถูก) และมีแนวโน้มอย่างมากที่นักวิจัยจะตกหลุมรักในคำตอบแรกที่ผุดออกมา จนปฏิเสธข้อโต้แย้งและความเป็นไปได้อื่นๆ ทั้งหมด
2. เมื่อพูดถึงงานวิจัย คนส่วนใหญ่มักจะมีภาพจำว่าทุกอย่างมันต้องเป็นวิทยาศาสตร์ที่น่าเชื่อถือมากๆ และคนมักจะอ้างถึงผลลัพท์จากงานวิจัยราวกับว่ามันคือสัจจะธรรมของโลก แต่ในความเป็นจริงมันไม่ใช่แบบนั้นเลย เพราะกระบวนการวิจัยก็มีทั้งที่ดีและไม่ดี (แม้ว่างานวิจัยจะต้องถูกรีวิวจากเซียนในแวดวงนั้นๆ ก่อนตีพิมพ์ แต่เราก็เห็นอยู่บ่อยๆ ว่างานวิจัยหลายๆ ชิ้นที่ได้ตีพิมพ์ก็ไม่ได้เข้าท่าเท่าไหร่)
และที่ยิ่งกว่าอะไรก็คือ ในแวดวงการวิจัยมันก็ยังมีเรื่องของการเมืองและจิตวิทยาเข้ามาเกี่ยวข้องด้วย อย่างในกรณีนี้ หนังสือเล่าว่ามันก็มีนักวิทยาศาสตร์คนอื่นที่ตั้งข้อสงสัยต่องานวิจัยชิ้นนี้เหมือนกัน แต่เสียงของคนเหล่านั้นก็ไม่ดังพอที่จะไปง้างกับเจ้าของงานวิจัยชิ้นนี้ได้ เพราะหลังจากที่ตีพิมพ์งานวิจัยชิ้นนี้ออกมาแล้ว รัฐบาลและสื่อต่างๆ ก็โหมประโคมข่าวกันสุดลิ่มว่านักวิจัยค้นพบสาเหตุของ Heart disease แล้ว และรณรงค์ให้ประชาชนลด ละ เลิก ไขมันอิ่มตัว (ซึ่งประชาชนก็รีบเชื่อทันที อาจจะด้วยความกังวลเกี่ยวกับโรคนี้ และภาพลักษณ์ที่น่าเชื่อถือของวงการวิทยาศาสตร์)
นี่ทำให้เจ้าของงานวิจัยคนนั้นกลายเป็นกึ่งๆ เทพเจ้าในวงการไปเลย เวลามีใครมาตั้งข้อสงสัยต่องานวิจัยของตัวเอง แทนที่จะใช้เหตุผลและข้อมูลมาคุยกัน เจ้าของงานวิจัยกลับใช้ Charisma ของตัวเองในการปัด Argument ของอีกฝ่ายให้ตกไป, อ้างว่าข้อมูลที่อีกฝ่ายยกมาไม่น่าเชื่อถือเท่าข้อมูลของเขาซึ่งมีมากกว่าทั้งปริมาณและคุณภาพ (เพราะได้ทุนก้อนโตมาจากรัฐบาล) ทำให้แม้จะมีคนที่มองออกว่างานวิจัยมันน่าสงสัย แต่คนเหล่านี้ก็ทำอะไรไม่ได้มากอยู่ดี
3. ด้วยคว���มที่งานวิจัยชื้นนี้มีรัฐบาลและหน่วยงานใหญ่ๆ หนุนหลังอยู่ ทำให้นักวิจัยหลายคน (ที่แม้จะไม่เห็นด้วย) เลือกที่จะไม่มีปากเสียงอะไรมากนัก เพราะแม้แต่ในแวดวงวิทยาศาสตร์มันก็ยังมีเรื่องของการเมืองปนอยู่ไม่น้อย ถ้าคุณแสดงท่าทีไม่เห็นด้วยต่องานวิจัยที่รัฐบาลหนุนหลังอยู่และวางตัวอยู่ฝั่งตรงข้ามกับลูกหม้อของวงการ เกิดคุณพลาดท่าเสียทีขึ้นมา มันเป็นไปได้มากว่าอนาคตนักวิจัยคุณอาจจบตรงนั้นเลย คุณจะหาคนสนับสนุนงานวิจัยในอนาคตของคุณได้น้อยลง ความน่าเชื่อถือของคุณจะหดหาย การหาทุนต่างๆ จะทำได้ยากขึ้น นักวิจัยเก่งๆ บางคนจึงเลือกจะเงียบไว้ หรือไม่ Aggressive เท่าที่ควร
สรุป จากที่อ่านมาประมาณ 1/5 รู้สึกว่าเป็นหนังสือที่ research ข้อมูลมาดีและอ่านสนุก เพราะหนังสือเลือกจะเล่าในมุมอื่นๆ อย่างเรื่องอคติในกระบวนการวิจัยหรือเรื่องการเมืองในแวดวงวิทยาศาสตร์ในสมัยนั้นด้วย ไม่ได้เอาแต่ยัดความรู้ทางวิทยาศาสตร์จนเลี่ยนหรือเข้าใจยาก ซึ่งความไม่วิทยาศาสตร์จ๋า (แต่มีงานวิจัยและข้อมูลตรรกะที่สมเหตุสมผลรองรับ) ทำให้มันอ่านสนุกและได้ความรู้ใหม่ๆ ดี (แต่มันจะจริงไม่จริงก็อีกเรื่องนะครับ)
ชอบครับ
เช่น ทำไมความรู้เกี่ยวกับ Nutrition หลายๆ อย่างมันถึงกลับไปกลับมา? (e.g. เมื่อก่อนเราเชื่อกันว่าไขมันอิ่มตัวเป็นต้นเหตุของโรคหลายๆ อย่าง เราถูกสอนให้ ‘ขจัดไขมันอิ่มตัวออกไปจากชีวิต และหันไปกินไขมันพืชหรือคาร์โบไฮเดรตแทน’ แต่ไปๆ มาๆ กลับมีงานวิจัยที่ออกมาบอกว่า ‘มากินไขมันอิ่มตัวกันเถอะ’ อะไรทำนองนั้น) , ทำไมความรู้หลายๆ อย่างซึ่งปัจจุบันได้รับการพิสูจน์แล้วว่าเป็น Myth ถึงสามารถอยู่ยงมาได้เป็นสิบๆ ปี? ทำไมแม้แต่คนในวงการเองก็ยังหลงเชื่อความรู้ที่เป็น Myth แบบนั้นอยู่เนิ่นนาน?
ซึ่งพออ่านหนังสือเล่มนี้แล้ว ก็รู้สึกว่าได้คลายข้อสงสัยหลายๆ อย่างไป และมันเป็นข้อมูลอีกด้านที่ผมไม่เคยรู้มาก่อน (แต่ต้องดอกจันทร์ตัวโตๆ ไว้ก่อนว่าส่วนตัวแล้วไม่ใช่คนในวงการและไม่ได้รักสุขภาพอะไรมากมายนะครับ บวกกับสมัยวัยรุ่นก็ตกวิทยาศาสตร์ทั้งมิดเทอมและไฟนอล ทำให้ความสามารถในการแยกแยะจริงเท็จจึงอาจจะมีไม่มากนัก และทุกอย่างก็อาจจะดูเป็นความรู้ใหม่สำหรับผมไปหมดนั่นแหละ)
ในช่วงต้นของหนังสือ ผู้เขียนเล่าย้อนไปในช่วที่ Heart disease กำลังเป็นปัญหาใหญ่ของคนอเมริกันอย่างมาก รัฐบาลและหน่วยงานที่เกี่ยวข้องจึงให้ทุนมหาศาลแก่นักวิจัย เพื่อไปทำการศึกษาหาสาเหตุของ Heart disease
ซึ่งการวิจัยของนักวิทยาศาสตร์ท่านหนึ่ง (ที่จะโดนโจมตีหนักมากในหนังสือเล่มนี้) ทำให้หวยมันมาลงที่ ‘ไขมันอิ่มตัว’ ว่าเป็นสาเหตุของโรค แต่ที่น่าแปลกคือ มีนักวิทยาศาสตร์หลายคนในยุคนั้นที่มองว่าผลลัพท์จากงานวิจัยนี้ค่อนข้างน่าสงสัย และกระบวนการต่างๆ ก็ยังไม่ Valid พอ
เช่น กลุ่มตัวอย่างในงานวิจัยไม่ได้ถูกเลือกมาแบบสุ่มอย่างที่ควรจะเป็น แต่ตัวนักวิจัยพยายามเลือกกลุ่มตัวอย่างที่มีแนวโน้มจะสนับสนุนสมมติฐานของตัวเองเท่านั้น, ผลลัพท์ที่ออกมานั้นเป็นแค่ Correlation ไม่ใช่ Causation (และเป็น Correlation แบบอ่อนมากๆ ด้วย เพราะกลุ่มตัวอย่างถูกคัดมาด้วยอคติ) และเหตุผลอื่นๆ อีกมากมาย
เมื่อพิจารณาจากกระบวนการวิจัยที่ไม่น่าเชื่อถือเหล่านี้แล้ว เราอาจคิดว่าผลลัพท์จากงานวิจัยนี้ก็น่าจะถูกจับได้ว่าเป็น Myth และตีตกไปอย่างรวดเร็ว แต่ความจริงกลับไมได้เป็นเช่นนั้น ด้วยเหตุผลหลายๆ อย่าง อาทิ
1. ในสมัยนั้น Heart disease เป็นโรคที่น่ากังวลมากๆ ของสังคมอเมริกัน (ยุคของ Eisenhower) และนักวิจัยได้รับทุนมหาศาลจากหน่วยงานด้านสุขภาพเพื่อทำการหาสาเหตุของโรคนี้ นักวิจัยจึงตกอยู่ในสภาพกดดันอย่างหนักที่ต้องหาคำตอบอะไรสักอย่างมาให้กับประชาชนและผู้นำประเทศ ส่งผลให้นักวิจัยใช้อคติในกระบวนการทดลองเพื่อให้ตัวเองได้ผลสรุปโดยเร็ว
เช่น การเลือกทดสอบเฉพาะกลุ่มตัวอย่างที่จะสนับสนุนสมมติฐานตั้งต้นของตัวเอง (ซึ่งผิดหลัก เพราะนักวิจัยควรจะตั้งข้อสงสัยต่อสมมติฐานของตัวเองให้มากเข้าไว้ แล้วค่อยหาทางพิสูจน์ว่ามันถูก) และมีแนวโน้มอย่างมากที่นักวิจัยจะตกหลุมรักในคำตอบแรกที่ผุดออกมา จนปฏิเสธข้อโต้แย้งและความเป็นไปได้อื่นๆ ทั้งหมด
2. เมื่อพูดถึงงานวิจัย คนส่วนใหญ่มักจะมีภาพจำว่าทุกอย่างมันต้องเป็นวิทยาศาสตร์ที่น่าเชื่อถือมากๆ และคนมักจะอ้างถึงผลลัพท์จากงานวิจัยราวกับว่ามันคือสัจจะธรรมของโลก แต่ในความเป็นจริงมันไม่ใช่แบบนั้นเลย เพราะกระบวนการวิจัยก็มีทั้งที่ดีและไม่ดี (แม้ว่างานวิจัยจะต้องถูกรีวิวจากเซียนในแวดวงนั้นๆ ก่อนตีพิมพ์ แต่เราก็เห็นอยู่บ่อยๆ ว่างานวิจัยหลายๆ ชิ้นที่ได้ตีพิมพ์ก็ไม่ได้เข้าท่าเท่าไหร่)
และที่ยิ่งกว่าอะไรก็คือ ในแวดวงการวิจัยมันก็ยังมีเรื่องของการเมืองและจิตวิทยาเข้ามาเกี่ยวข้องด้วย อย่างในกรณีนี้ หนังสือเล่าว่ามันก็มีนักวิทยาศาสตร์คนอื่นที่ตั้งข้อสงสัยต่องานวิจัยชิ้นนี้เหมือนกัน แต่เสียงของคนเหล่านั้นก็ไม่ดังพอที่จะไปง้างกับเจ้าของงานวิจัยชิ้นนี้ได้ เพราะหลังจากที่ตีพิมพ์งานวิจัยชิ้นนี้ออกมาแล้ว รัฐบาลและสื่อต่างๆ ก็โหมประโคมข่าวกันสุดลิ่มว่านักวิจัยค้นพบสาเหตุของ Heart disease แล้ว และรณรงค์ให้ประชาชนลด ละ เลิก ไขมันอิ่มตัว (ซึ่งประชาชนก็รีบเชื่อทันที อาจจะด้วยความกังวลเกี่ยวกับโรคนี้ และภาพลักษณ์ที่น่าเชื่อถือของวงการวิทยาศาสตร์)
นี่ทำให้เจ้าของงานวิจัยคนนั้นกลายเป็นกึ่งๆ เทพเจ้าในวงการไปเลย เวลามีใครมาตั้งข้อสงสัยต่องานวิจัยของตัวเอง แทนที่จะใช้เหตุผลและข้อมูลมาคุยกัน เจ้าของงานวิจัยกลับใช้ Charisma ของตัวเองในการปัด Argument ของอีกฝ่ายให้ตกไป, อ้างว่าข้อมูลที่อีกฝ่ายยกมาไม่น่าเชื่อถือเท่าข้อมูลของเขาซึ่งมีมากกว่าทั้งปริมาณและคุณภาพ (เพราะได้ทุนก้อนโตมาจากรัฐบาล) ทำให้แม้จะมีคนที่มองออกว่างานวิจัยมันน่าสงสัย แต่คนเหล่านี้ก็ทำอะไรไม่ได้มากอยู่ดี
3. ด้วยคว���มที่งานวิจัยชื้นนี้มีรัฐบาลและหน่วยงานใหญ่ๆ หนุนหลังอยู่ ทำให้นักวิจัยหลายคน (ที่แม้จะไม่เห็นด้วย) เลือกที่จะไม่มีปากเสียงอะไรมากนัก เพราะแม้แต่ในแวดวงวิทยาศาสตร์มันก็ยังมีเรื่องของการเมืองปนอยู่ไม่น้อย ถ้าคุณแสดงท่าทีไม่เห็นด้วยต่องานวิจัยที่รัฐบาลหนุนหลังอยู่และวางตัวอยู่ฝั่งตรงข้ามกับลูกหม้อของวงการ เกิดคุณพลาดท่าเสียทีขึ้นมา มันเป็นไปได้มากว่าอนาคตนักวิจัยคุณอาจจบตรงนั้นเลย คุณจะหาคนสนับสนุนงานวิจัยในอนาคตของคุณได้น้อยลง ความน่าเชื่อถือของคุณจะหดหาย การหาทุนต่างๆ จะทำได้ยากขึ้น นักวิจัยเก่งๆ บางคนจึงเลือกจะเงียบไว้ หรือไม่ Aggressive เท่าที่ควร
สรุป จากที่อ่านมาประมาณ 1/5 รู้สึกว่าเป็นหนังสือที่ research ข้อมูลมาดีและอ่านสนุก เพราะหนังสือเลือกจะเล่าในมุมอื่นๆ อย่างเรื่องอคติในกระบวนการวิจัยหรือเรื่องการเมืองในแวดวงวิทยาศาสตร์ในสมัยนั้นด้วย ไม่ได้เอาแต่ยัดความรู้ทางวิทยาศาสตร์จนเลี่ยนหรือเข้าใจยาก ซึ่งความไม่วิทยาศาสตร์จ๋า (แต่มีงานวิจัยและข้อมูลตรรกะที่สมเหตุสมผลรองรับ) ทำให้มันอ่านสนุกและได้ความรู้ใหม่ๆ ดี (แต่มันจะจริงไม่จริงก็อีกเรื่องนะครับ)
ชอบครับ
June 4, 2017
This book is very well researched and Teicholz mentions often how science is supposed to work--such an important lesson for the layreader. I say supposed to work because this book clearly shows that politics and rhetoric have been controlling what science the general public hears about, at least as far as nutrition is concerned. On p. 36 is a good example: "Keys wanted his hypothesis to be presumed right until it was proven wrong"--Teicholz makes a crucial distinction here for the reader--that "science is not like our justice system". For these explanations alone this book is worth telling everyone to read.
She also clearly explains "associations", "causation" and how epidemiological and observational studies work, and does a tremendous job of explaining science and the scientific method and the role of bias in the nutrition science that has led this entire country for decades (p. 58).
Because the author does such a good job of the science, one complaint I have is that she should have give to the reader a general description of fatty acids and the biochemistry of how they work much sooner than she did. Her explanation is clear and understandable, but I feel it should come much earlier, as this is the basis of why trans fats are so insidious and destructive.
Overall this book made me mad- not at Teicholz but at our FDA and the people who are supposed to have the nation's citizens' best interests at heart- nothing with the nutrition science in the last 30 years did this, and because of the author's meticulous research I do believe this. In summary, I would tell everyone to stay skeptical, question everything you're told, and do your own background research before adopting any lifestyle (I'm calling it a lifestyle here to differentiate what I mean from fad diets, of which we should ALWAYS be dubious).
She also clearly explains "associations", "causation" and how epidemiological and observational studies work, and does a tremendous job of explaining science and the scientific method and the role of bias in the nutrition science that has led this entire country for decades (p. 58).
Because the author does such a good job of the science, one complaint I have is that she should have give to the reader a general description of fatty acids and the biochemistry of how they work much sooner than she did. Her explanation is clear and understandable, but I feel it should come much earlier, as this is the basis of why trans fats are so insidious and destructive.
Overall this book made me mad- not at Teicholz but at our FDA and the people who are supposed to have the nation's citizens' best interests at heart- nothing with the nutrition science in the last 30 years did this, and because of the author's meticulous research I do believe this. In summary, I would tell everyone to stay skeptical, question everything you're told, and do your own background research before adopting any lifestyle (I'm calling it a lifestyle here to differentiate what I mean from fad diets, of which we should ALWAYS be dubious).
July 15, 2018
https://elleisforliterature.blogspot....
We have all read studies or seen documentaries that tell us how being vegetarian or vegan leads to better health, lower cancer rates, etc. and it has even caused many of us to change how we eat. Nina Teicholz read all these studies (not just the summary conclusions) to understand them. In this book, she sheds a new light on so many studies and whether the conclusions that were drawn were accurate. I got sick and healed with protein and fat. Now I understand why.
We have all read studies or seen documentaries that tell us how being vegetarian or vegan leads to better health, lower cancer rates, etc. and it has even caused many of us to change how we eat. Nina Teicholz read all these studies (not just the summary conclusions) to understand them. In this book, she sheds a new light on so many studies and whether the conclusions that were drawn were accurate. I got sick and healed with protein and fat. Now I understand why.
January 3, 2018
“The Big Fat Surprise” by Nina Teicholz was the second book that Malcolm Gladwell recommended on his podcast about the evolution of the McDonalds french fry recipe. Whereas “The Case Against Sugar” (the first book he recommended) was mostly a hit job on sugar and carbs with some defense of fatty foods, this book is the opposite, focusing on the virtues of dietary fat (specifically saturated fat), with some mention of the ill effects of sugar.
The gist of the book is this: all of the studies that implicate saturated fat as a cause of heart disease are flawed in some way. Many of the early epidemiological studies used surveys which are filled with errors. At best, you could only draw correlations, not causations. The few clinical trials that did exist were either terribly flawed or had results that didn’t match the low-fat orthodoxy of the nutrition community and were thus, ignored. The erroneous belief that saturated fat is bad for heart health lead to an increase in carbohydrate consumption which made us more susceptible to obesity and diabetes without clearly improving heart health.
In one particularly flawed study, Greeks were surveyed about their eating habits during Lent when their diet is radically different than the rest of the year. This fact was lost on the researchers. The Greeks, who had very little heart disease at the time, were turned into a type of dietary model. This flaw helped inform dietary recommendations around the world for decades to come. It would be unfair to pin the subsequent obsession with a low-fat diet on this one relatively minor mistake, but it is a good example of how simple mistakes can have huge implications.
Many mistakes like this were made over the years, and scientists, it turns out, are just regular people. Their egos, biases, greed, and stupidity often get in the way of finding the right answers. The author does a good job explaining this. It would be easy, though inaccurate, to blame greedy corporations for much of the bad nutrition science. They might deserve some of the blame, but the government and well-intentioned scientists deserve much more.
My one problem with the book is that Teicholz is very skeptical and critical of any study that is anti-saturated fat. Near the end of the book, she cites more recent studies that are actually pro-saturated fat. She isn’t at all skeptical of these studies. In fact, she seems convinced that saturated fat, particularly from animals, is practically a health food. There is no doubt she does a great job showing that saturated fat doesn’t deserve all the negative press that it gets. I don’t think it is quite as clear that it should actually be considered a health food, though I am open to the idea. If the author showed as much skepticism of the recent pro-fat studies, I would probably be more likely to jump on the saturated fat bandwagon.
Either way, the information in this book would probably be surprising to most people. The idea that saturated fat causes heart disease was always based on a lot of bad science. This book lays out the case in favor of saturated fat as a legitimate part of a healthy diet in a coherent and comprehensive way. I like this book more than the “Case Against Sugar” because I thought it did a better job of sticking to the facts. Because I consider diet and health to be of the utmost importance, and because the average person is so misinformed on this issue, I would suggest everyone read this book. I give this book 4.5 stars, taking off half a star because it lagged towards the end.
The gist of the book is this: all of the studies that implicate saturated fat as a cause of heart disease are flawed in some way. Many of the early epidemiological studies used surveys which are filled with errors. At best, you could only draw correlations, not causations. The few clinical trials that did exist were either terribly flawed or had results that didn’t match the low-fat orthodoxy of the nutrition community and were thus, ignored. The erroneous belief that saturated fat is bad for heart health lead to an increase in carbohydrate consumption which made us more susceptible to obesity and diabetes without clearly improving heart health.
In one particularly flawed study, Greeks were surveyed about their eating habits during Lent when their diet is radically different than the rest of the year. This fact was lost on the researchers. The Greeks, who had very little heart disease at the time, were turned into a type of dietary model. This flaw helped inform dietary recommendations around the world for decades to come. It would be unfair to pin the subsequent obsession with a low-fat diet on this one relatively minor mistake, but it is a good example of how simple mistakes can have huge implications.
Many mistakes like this were made over the years, and scientists, it turns out, are just regular people. Their egos, biases, greed, and stupidity often get in the way of finding the right answers. The author does a good job explaining this. It would be easy, though inaccurate, to blame greedy corporations for much of the bad nutrition science. They might deserve some of the blame, but the government and well-intentioned scientists deserve much more.
My one problem with the book is that Teicholz is very skeptical and critical of any study that is anti-saturated fat. Near the end of the book, she cites more recent studies that are actually pro-saturated fat. She isn’t at all skeptical of these studies. In fact, she seems convinced that saturated fat, particularly from animals, is practically a health food. There is no doubt she does a great job showing that saturated fat doesn’t deserve all the negative press that it gets. I don’t think it is quite as clear that it should actually be considered a health food, though I am open to the idea. If the author showed as much skepticism of the recent pro-fat studies, I would probably be more likely to jump on the saturated fat bandwagon.
Either way, the information in this book would probably be surprising to most people. The idea that saturated fat causes heart disease was always based on a lot of bad science. This book lays out the case in favor of saturated fat as a legitimate part of a healthy diet in a coherent and comprehensive way. I like this book more than the “Case Against Sugar” because I thought it did a better job of sticking to the facts. Because I consider diet and health to be of the utmost importance, and because the average person is so misinformed on this issue, I would suggest everyone read this book. I give this book 4.5 stars, taking off half a star because it lagged towards the end.
August 24, 2018
I listened to this audiobook in 2015 and was tremendously impressed. It’s fascinating, eye-opening, and scrupulously researched. Having recently heard NIna Teicholz on a podcast (Science Salon), I decided to listen this book again. I was, and am, completely persuaded that our leading healthcare organizations have completely misled the public about nutrition and diet over the past fifty years. In that time, Americans have been told to cut out saturated fat (full-fat dairy, butter, red meat, etc.) and eat lots of carbohydrates and grains). And we have duly complied. The trouble is that there was never any good science underlying those health recommendations. And over the past fifty years, as we have worked so hard to stick to low-fat products and diets, obesity, heart disease, and diabetes have skyrocketed.
Dietary fat doesn’t make you fat? Counterintuitive, right? Low-fat diets make you fat? Counterintuitive! But look at the science. Teicholz spent many years reading the science and interviewing scientists, as well as nutrition experts, gurus, and “personalities.” And she lays it out here, decade by decade. Prepare for some mind-blowing revelations.
I’m just appalled at the extent to which aggressive and imposing individuals, as well as industry, have determined the nation’s nutritional agenda. I now am very disinclined to trust any pronouncements of leading health and governmental organizations, such as the American Heart Association, FDA, USDA, and maybe even the National Cancer Institute. At least, not without investigating whether there’s any solid research behind what they say. Because, more and more, it looks to me like their recommendations are greatly controlled by industry and economics. So much health advice is just marketing.
So why, oh why, didn’t I change my eating habits when I read this book in 2015? I really don’t know. But this time, I took it seriously. I’ve added delicious fats back into my diet — eggs, bacon, butter, cheese, full-fat cottage cheese. I’ve also made an effort to control portions in the belief that most Americans just eat too much, more than we need. But I haven’t cut out carbs. I’ve reduced carbs, but have been eating some bread, pasta, corn on the cob, and fruit. And whaddya know? In little more than two weeks, I lost at least 3 pounds — closer to 4. And yes, I’m an n of 1, and perhaps not worth mentioning. Except that I’m pretty wound up — about both the book and my dietary changes. However, I hasten to add that this is not a diet book. The point is really to trace the relationship between diet and heart disease. The conclusion is that it's not what we've been led to believe.
See Ci’s review.
And Eric’s review.
By the way, the audiobook is wonderful. I'm very picky about narrators and usually prefer to hear a book read by the author. But this reader, Erin Bennett, is excellent.
Dietary fat doesn’t make you fat? Counterintuitive, right? Low-fat diets make you fat? Counterintuitive! But look at the science. Teicholz spent many years reading the science and interviewing scientists, as well as nutrition experts, gurus, and “personalities.” And she lays it out here, decade by decade. Prepare for some mind-blowing revelations.
I’m just appalled at the extent to which aggressive and imposing individuals, as well as industry, have determined the nation’s nutritional agenda. I now am very disinclined to trust any pronouncements of leading health and governmental organizations, such as the American Heart Association, FDA, USDA, and maybe even the National Cancer Institute. At least, not without investigating whether there’s any solid research behind what they say. Because, more and more, it looks to me like their recommendations are greatly controlled by industry and economics. So much health advice is just marketing.
So why, oh why, didn’t I change my eating habits when I read this book in 2015? I really don’t know. But this time, I took it seriously. I’ve added delicious fats back into my diet — eggs, bacon, butter, cheese, full-fat cottage cheese. I’ve also made an effort to control portions in the belief that most Americans just eat too much, more than we need. But I haven’t cut out carbs. I’ve reduced carbs, but have been eating some bread, pasta, corn on the cob, and fruit. And whaddya know? In little more than two weeks, I lost at least 3 pounds — closer to 4. And yes, I’m an n of 1, and perhaps not worth mentioning. Except that I’m pretty wound up — about both the book and my dietary changes. However, I hasten to add that this is not a diet book. The point is really to trace the relationship between diet and heart disease. The conclusion is that it's not what we've been led to believe.
See Ci’s review.
And Eric’s review.
By the way, the audiobook is wonderful. I'm very picky about narrators and usually prefer to hear a book read by the author. But this reader, Erin Bennett, is excellent.
October 19, 2018
The most astonishing revelation of 2018 (for me) is the toxicity in vegetable cooking oils. Dr. Cate Shanahan calls it The Silent Killer in our food. Prior to July I hadn't heard a hint, not one whiff of warning. But, think about it: vegetable oils simply didn't *exist* one hundred years ago; yet, today they can be found in almost every processed food.
This launched me on a quest to learn more and deepen my thin grasp of dietary fat. Enter Nina Teicholz. She gives the reader a tour through the history of nutrition in the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. We began eating a diet of saturated fat (e.g. butter) until the scientists deemed it harmful for the heart. We moved to partially hydrogenated oils (trans fats) (e.g. Crisco, margarine) a product created through chemical processing. When whistleblowers sounded a warning about trans fats we transitioned to polyunsaturated fats (vegetable oils). Ironically, these sources of fat are even less healthy than the partially hydrogenated fats they replaced.
This book is dense with science but characterized by clarity. Her research took Teicholz ten years. Regardless of the length, this science-phobic reader's attention never flagged. If you are interested in health and nutrition, I highly recommend the book. Nina Teicholz has several videos online, ranging from 20-60 minutes.
This launched me on a quest to learn more and deepen my thin grasp of dietary fat. Enter Nina Teicholz. She gives the reader a tour through the history of nutrition in the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. We began eating a diet of saturated fat (e.g. butter) until the scientists deemed it harmful for the heart. We moved to partially hydrogenated oils (trans fats) (e.g. Crisco, margarine) a product created through chemical processing. When whistleblowers sounded a warning about trans fats we transitioned to polyunsaturated fats (vegetable oils). Ironically, these sources of fat are even less healthy than the partially hydrogenated fats they replaced.
This book is dense with science but characterized by clarity. Her research took Teicholz ten years. Regardless of the length, this science-phobic reader's attention never flagged. If you are interested in health and nutrition, I highly recommend the book. Nina Teicholz has several videos online, ranging from 20-60 minutes.
February 9, 2024
Very well researched history & politics around food “trends” and advertising.
January 17, 2019
My liking of this book is biased by my dietary choices.
With that being said, Teicholz put a massive amount of research into her book. I equate it to be a popular science version of Gary Taubes’ 2007 book Good Calories Bad Calories. I would recommend both to the curious, but preface Taubes’ book as being less accessible to laymen and chock full of in-depth analysis of nutritional research. Teicholz managed to take the bulk of GCBC and sift out the extra details that may cause the Everyman to get lost and/or bored. Both have their place, of course, but I would recommend this book to anyone new to this arena. It would make a great gift to any curious reader.
With that being said, Teicholz put a massive amount of research into her book. I equate it to be a popular science version of Gary Taubes’ 2007 book Good Calories Bad Calories. I would recommend both to the curious, but preface Taubes’ book as being less accessible to laymen and chock full of in-depth analysis of nutritional research. Teicholz managed to take the bulk of GCBC and sift out the extra details that may cause the Everyman to get lost and/or bored. Both have their place, of course, but I would recommend this book to anyone new to this arena. It would make a great gift to any curious reader.
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