The Big Fat Surprise: why butter, meat, and cheese belong in a healthy diet

An interesting review of the history of the low fat diet and the relationship between fat and heart disease. Worth reading for the description of the way in which the diet-heart disease theory started and how it grew to become the consensus opinion despite very little direct evidence. The book also illustrates just how difficult it is to isolate and quantify the effects of dietary fat (or any other component) in a reliable fashion without either spending boggling quantities of money or infringing on the human rights of test subjects. Or both. I've not got the time to chase up the authors references or argue through all her evidence so I have to take her word that, when she says a study is unreliable for reasons x, y, z, she's probably correct and not telling porkies. All I can say is that, with the little knowledge I have and with the additional reading around that I've done, she makes a good case that a low fat diet (20-25% of total calories) is probably, at best, not harmful and certainly not the miracle cure for heart disease we've been led to believe it would be. All of this is delivered in calm, measured prose and impartiality. Evidence later in the book that a diet high in carbs (particularly refined carbs) may actually be the cause of the obesity epidemic is well presented, though given the absence of studies in the literature and the difficulty in conducting them, its difficult to know just how conclusive the arguments are. I was left with the feeling that government dietary recommendations were initially made on the basis of some poor quality research combined with leaps of faith, all in the absence of a complete understanding of what the body does with the various forms of fat we eat. The book doesn't make diet recommendations and doesn't have a meal plan. Although it refers to the Atkins diet, it has to as an exemplar of a diet high fat low carb diet.

What a great book! About as thorough as you can get, when it comes to the details of how and why the high carb diet is so prominent. A really interesting read, there's so much information packed in to it. For example from, from Chapter 7... "Homer’s “Liquid Gold”? It is reassuring to think that olive oil, with it’s presumed four thousand years of history, must at least be safe, if not beneficial, for human health, perhaps in ways we haven’t managed to capture through scientific studies. Homer called it “liquid gold”, after all. Or did he? Although “liquid gold” appears on lots of websites selling olive oil, the phrase doesn’t appear in any translation of Homer’s Oddysey that I could find. Indeed, the actual passage in the Oddysey says something quite different: Odysseus is given “olive oil in a flask of gold” to anoint himself with. In fact, nowhere in any of the Hellenic texts is there any mention that olive oil was consumed as part of the diet. The oil was ancient, true, but – as it turns out – not as a food; it was employed mainly as a cosmetic, for rubbing over the body during ritual activities and athletic contests or simply to enhance physical beauty among gods and mortals alike. Did the use of olive oil as a food go back much beyond the earlier twentieth century even? Was it the “dominant item of the diet”, going back “at least four thousand years” as Keys claimed? Amazingly, it seems not. “Less than 100 years ago, ordinary people in many parts of Greece ate far less oil than today”, wrote a French historian in 1993. Greek archaeologist Yannis Hamilakis, who has researched the subject extensively, looked at Crete in particular and found that the oil was insignificant as a substance crop before modern times. The amount of olive oil available to the average medieval Cretan peasant for consumption, was in fact, “very low”, and its production expanded only in the mid-seventeenth century, when encouraged by Venetian rulers seeking to respond to a growing industrial demand for the oil – mainly making soap. As Hamilakis concludes, the historical record shows that “despite conventional wisdom, there is almost no evidence which could indicate with certainty” that olive oil was made for “culinary use” in Greece until the nineteenth century. In Spain, too, olive oil did not appear to be consumed in substantial amounts until the 1880’s. And it was apparently the same story in southern Italy, where one scholar found it “doubtful” that olive oil “made a contribution to the diet for over 40 centuries”. An analysis of tree cultivation in southern Italy indicates that olive oil “must have been a scarce commodity until at least the 16th century and… its principal use in medieval times was in religious rituals”. Indeed in historical accounts going back to antiquity, the fat more commonly used in cooking in the Mediterranean, among peasants and the elite alike, was lard. So it seems that olive oil is actually a relatively recent addition to the Mediterranean diet and not an ancient foodstuff, despite the best efforts by interested parties to add Homer to the marketing team." I did a quick search on google for "liquid gold olive oil" and got 847,000 results!!!

A truly excellent book that cuts though the myth about saturated fats and fats in general pushed on the West by the USA. I don’t think I’ll believe anything that comes out of the USA again unless independently corroborated. As a diabetic and recently obese person I can testify that my blood sugar has improved to the point that one of my diabetes medications has become unnecessary and blood glucose continues to improve. Despite discontinuing my statin pills, my blood fats have improved. My blood pressure has improved. My weight has fallen, without any hardship, by 85lbs and is now in the non-obese range. I also feel more energetic, lively and healthy. I now eat very little carbohydrate, plenty of fat, moderate protein. I avoid the seed oils such as sunflower, rapeseed etc though I do use some extra virgin olive oil. Apart from the fat in the meat, eggs, cheese and fish I eat, I use butter, lard, and coconut oil for frying though I by no means fry everything. I highly recommend this book and hope you will do your best to spread the word after reading it.

Very well written and thoroughly researched. It's a gripping read despite being a serious book. I actually read it a second time immediately after finishing because I was so keen to ensure that I'd understood the subject thoroughly. Nina highlights how dietary advice to eat less saturated fat was based on extremely poor science and how it has been perpetuated for fifty years by so-called nutritional experts, encouraged by the processed food manufacturers who have an interest in us eating their foods rather than good old fashioned whole meat and vegetables. After eating a low-sat-fat diet for eighteen years and putting on several stone (despite not eating ready-meals, cakes, cookies or any fast food), I have now lost three stone (and am keeping it off) as a result of joining a gym and virtually cutting out processed carbohydrates such as bread, potatoes, pasta and white rice. My success gave me an interest in understanding why this approach worked when calorie counting didn't. As well as looking at all dietary research over the last two centuries, Nina explains that as there are only three food groups; fat, protein and carbohydrate by cutting out high-fat foods one tends to eat more carbohydrates which the body more easily converts to sugar and stores as fat. She also contrasts the Mediterranean vs Atkins vs Ornish Vegan diet approaches, notes all the trustworthy as well as untrustworthy scientific studies and blows the whistle on trans fats and the latest interesterification of fats used by the processing and catering industries. AN ESSENTIAL BOOK FOR ALL MEDICAL PRACTITIONERS AND NUTRITION EXPERTS TO READ.

Terrific book - a detailed look at the politics, personalities, and science. It is hard to believe that the authorities, and nutritional scientists over the last 50 or so years, could have made such a monumental mess of things. Very well researched. I mean, how hard can it be? You really have very few choices: 1. Some sort of equalish split between carbs, protein and fat 2. Pick one, and eat mostly that. You can't pick low protein - you have to stay above 80 or so grams/day; you shouldn't pick high protein - it has been tried, and it makes you ill, so if you are going to eat a high something diet, you only have a choice of two - carbs or fat. A secondary choice is what type of fat, which kind of comes down to saturated, monounsaturated or polyunsaturated. Ancel Keys was almost single-handedly responsible for setting the Americans irrevocably on exactly the wrong course. He made the worst possible choices, so the Americans are now encouraged to eat a high carbohydrate diet, and the only approved fat is polynsaturated (with some olive oil). This is a nightmare for health; the olive oil is probably not too bad, but it appears that the best diet is one high in saturated fat, with the lowest possible level of carbohydrates, especially added sugar, which is a health disaster. It is staggering to reflect that the Americans have spent billions of dollars researching diet over the last 50 or so years, and have made a monumental mess of it. The rest of the world the followed the Americans. Unbelievable

Nina Teicholz is a giant (USA and globally) in researching, exposing and challenging the corruption of government diet guidelines, which after political groundwork in the 1950s, were introduced to the USA in the 1970s (USDA 'food pyramid'); extending to UK (NHS 'Eatwell Guide/Plate'); also to Europe and internationally in much of the 'developed world'. Since then we've seen obesity, diabetes (esp Type 2) and chronic illness explode, including mental illness - depression, anxiety, suicides. Teicholz is free from affiliation or payment arrangements with food and pharma industries. She was a pivotal witness at the trial of Professor Tim Noakes in South Africa - incidentally please find and watch the video(s) about his trial, because it features vast amounts of information about nutrition, health, illness, and the experts who understand these issues, for example Zoe Harcombe of the UK. The UK's 'Public Health Collaboration' organisation is very significant. So too is the American organisation Diet Doctor. Interestingly vast amounts of educational information are available COMPLETELY FREE from organisations which align with the work of Ms Teicholz. We are now beginning to see the diet and nutrition tide turn, so that increasingly more people and health professionals understand the dangers of processed foods, sugars, carbs and vegetable oils and grain oils. Sleep, salt and lifestyle are other huge factors in how the 'developed' world has become so terribly unhealthy. Anyone interested in discovering more, please do the free PHC (Public Health Collaboration) training. On the PHC UK website you will see world leading doctors who are the PHC scientific board, including Dr Aseem Malhotra. You will also see experts in food addiction, which is a massive area of opportunity for education and transformational change, not least because sugar is considered by many experts now to be the 'gateway drug' to all other addictions. The work of PHC patron Steve Bennett (Health Results, launched in 2022) is remarkable and transformational too. The work of the LowCarbFreshwell GPs in Essex (now being rolled out by the NHS to other GP surgeries) is further evidence that the dietary approach advocated by Teicholz et al not only reverses obesity and diabetes type 2, and dramatically improves and cures many chronic health conditions, buit also saves the NHS (and taxpayers) a fortune. You will see these diet/lifestyle educational supports and improvements being introduced increasingly by the NHS in 2023/24, and also to UK schools and corporations. Separately and very much related, also explore the work of Professor Edward Bullmore (Cambridge neuroscience) on inflammation and the myths of the blood-brain barrier - his book The Inflamed Mind is pivotal. For those particularly interested in antidepressants/anxiety/depression/suicide please explore the work of highly qualified 'critical psychiatry' leaders Joanna Moncrieff (esp the Jul 2022 huge UCL meta-analysis of serotonin/SSRI data) and the work/books of Dr James Davies (Roehampton). Davies' work inputs to the UK All Party Parliamentary Group for the harms/addictions of prescription drugs. These are exciting hugely optimistic times, especially as so much of these transformational changes are international. When people are educated how to eat more healthily, this changes what the shops stock, what the restaurants and cafes sell, and what the manufacturers produce. This is a ground-upwards quiet revolution. Be part of it, and improve your health by educating yourself about nutrition and lifestyle. And please buy this book; it's a life-changer, and life-saver! Eat well, Sleep well, Move well, Be well! Thanks for reading this review, Alan Chapman (health coach and educationalist)

Since The Enlightenment man has had blind faith in his ability to reason, to analyse and to lecture. Science is the new religion and what went before is dead, of no use; that there is a scientific solution to every "problem". Which is how - with scant evidence - fifty odd years ago nutritionists got the ears of those in power (and commerce). Believing they had cracked the reason behind gradually rising levels of heart disease, the "specialists" put the Western world on a low-fat, high carb diet. The results, of course, have been dismal. The arrogance of the perpetrators is breathtaking. In a blink of an eye they discarded millions of years of human evolutionary experience, an experience based on eating meat, dairy and saturated fats full of nutrients and proteins. Enormous quantities of vegetable oil (and all their revolting hydrogenated offspring) were introduced into the Western diet without any thought as to the consequences. Staggering stuff. Teicholz's skill is making what can be a technically challenging foray through dietary strictures, cholesterols, different types of calories etc readable and compelling. She has done a lot of research and it shows: The book took 10 years to write and was worth it. In a nutshell this book confirms that the Atkins Diet works and - more importantly - how and why it works: Because it is (more or less) the diet that has fed mankind for the last few million years (the last 50 disastrous years notwithstanding).

I read this thoroughly and wholeheartedly agree with all the conclusions that a low fat diet is harmful compared to a low carb high(normal) fat way of eating, which is also in agreement with all of the other uptodate doctors and researches that I have read and listened to. High fat low carb is also better than a Mediterranean diet. I would recommend this to everyone who wants to live longer and healthier. It is very well researched and looks at all of the pros and cons in all the research. I wish more doctors would read this.

GOOD BOOKS

Complicated and boring, who reads all this?

Juntamente com o livro "porque engordamos e o que fazer para evitar" de Gary Taubes são os melhores livros para quem quer aprender mais sobre uma alimentação com um teor mais elevado de gordura e menor de carboidratos e suas implicações para uma vida mais saudável

"Alas, thou hast misconstrued everything" (Julius Caesar 5.3.83) So spoke Titanius to Cassius' body before turning his sword on himself, realising that Cassius had misunderstood the signs of battle, and now all was lost. Sadly, the legions of academics who totally misconstrued the place of dietary fat and cholesterol in human disease are not so willing to acknowledge their mistake. Indeed, in the main, they still do not seem to realise how wrong they were. "The Big Fat Surprise" is a fascinating historical and technical account of a dreadful scientific misunderstanding that had its roots in 1950's America; from humble beginnings, pioneered by the nutritionist Ancel Keys, the mistaken "Diet-Heart" Hypothesis blossomed over the decades and gathered an unstoppable momentum amongst the scientific, medical and political communities (in short, the theory states that "dietary fat drives blood cholesterol which in turn drives Coronary Heart Disease). Increasingly as the ideology around this theory became entrenched, the Emperor's nakedness could not be acknowledged by the academic and medical fraternity, and the correct scientific method of proving propositions failed spectacularly. The Surprise is that such an enormous quantity of otherwise intelligent people could spin in circles and cling to a failed hypothesis, as a growing body of contradictory data emerged. Sadly, the ultimate result was the Big, Fat and Diabetic population, which we now see lumbering all around us. Teicholz begins with an introduction that encapsulates the whole drama from a 30,000 foot viewpoint, before moving on smoothly to some of the more interesting "paradoxes" that totally undermine the Diet-Heart Hypothesis. These first chapters draw the reader into the narrative, introducing us to some fascinating historical characters who achieved great insights, illustrating how animal fat could be counted amongst the most nutritious and valuable foods that humans could consume - even when these dominated the diet to the near-exclusion of carbohydrates. Ancel Keys, however, dismissed these pivotal observations as "irrelevant" - without offering any supporting data for his position. Following this lead-in we get to the heart of the matter - a discussion of Keys' obsessive and aggressive domination of this arena over the next decades, gaining acolytes and manipulating the whole discourse, and executing carefully crafted experiments that would likely support his beliefs (or be massaged to achieve that end). These were the infamous "Six Countries" and "Seven Countries" studies, and although I was familiar with the bad science that underpinned them, I was further shocked by the extent of it. For anyone with a passing interest in their health, and the most salient scientific knowledge that informs it, this is required reading. And how could such a misunderstanding survive to generate arguably the biggest human-health debacle of the century? Well we are about to find out, as the following chapter draws us down the rabbit-hole, into an entirely accurate and compelling history of misunderstanding, cronyism, industry influence and incompetence. The details of the conflicting evidence from multiple trials are thoroughly researched and clearly articulated here - including the groundbreaking outcome of the original and best population study (Framingham) - whose final result was rewritten to fit the prevailing ideology - the actual data muddied beyond belief into an abstract and media release that was essentially fraudulent. As you read I'm sure you will feel the urge to reach into the past and shake sense into the scientific and medical community, who had allowed themselves to be blinded by the now powerful orthodox position taken. It is a compelling lesson in academic hubris and lack of collective leadership; although many voices of sanity were raised, they lacked the character and wherewithal to band together and ensure that reason prevailed. Thus America and then the world embarked on "the largest uncontrolled experiment in the history of mankind"; and the outcome of same is shuffling all around us, caught in a Neuro-Endocrinological Disease cycle of Obesity (and paradoxically a simultaneous state of malnutrition); these are the unknowing citizens who pay the ultimate price of their society's bad science. The following chapter is another page turner, dealing with the polyunsaturated fat debacle that has been foisted upon us all. Half-truths and misunderstandings are clearly explained, through a high-level analysis of the major experiments that led to the mistaken belief that polyunsaturated fats should replace natural saturated fats in our diet. Again, one can feel the anger rise as one realises how yet again they misconstrued the signals, and when the experiment outcomes indicated their mistake, how they forcibly pushed the unwelcome data under the research carpet. The (perhaps unintentional) dishonesty and groupthink of researchers here is nothing short of astonishing; this is a must-read for anyone who still believes the absurd suggestion that modern industrially extracted seed oils are healthier than ancestral foods that fuelled our very evolution. In fact the very opposite is demonstrably being proven true, and only now is correct advice leeching at a pitifully slow rate into the mainstream guidelines. Get ahead of the curve on this one guys - your heart and a cancer-free cellular structure will thank you for it, believe me. Midpoint through this excellent book the story becomes even richer, as we focus on the interaction with the political sphere, with the misinformation gathering momentum through government and media involvement. During this section you may find your faith in politics dented severely - and that's good, because it means that you're intelligent; but you will also likely feel disgust and anger, and rightly so again. I won't spoil the surprise by detailing the content here, but suffice it to say that you will be amazed that you held the beliefs that we all did from birth, based on the cack-handed crap that evolved through this process of faith-based science and accompanying politicisation. The parallels with religion are not a coincidence - this was more ideology than engineering. Teicholz now changes gear and begins to focus on the victims of the emerging ideology - those most adversely affected by deploying a low-fat dogma - the women and the children. I have spent more than a year studying cholesterol and metabolism in great depth, and I regularly stop for a moment to think how damaging the past six decades of technical incorrectness have been, particularly for this constituency. The detail and accuracy here are excellent - all women should focus particularly on this chapter, which also explains in a very clear and understandable way how HDL, LDL and the cholesterol science evolved during the period; when I think of my mother's generation onwards, being frightened away from nutritious and satiating foods that fuelled human development itself, into the bosom of substances that have no place in a healthy diet....well, read it and weep (!) For brevity I will speed up at this point, although in the book the pace remains as steady as it is revelatory. Teicholz brings us through the Mediterranean Diet craze, the scourge of Trans Fats, the latter's even more toxic replacement in a seething battle between competing interests, and then climaxes with a perfectly balanced and thoroughly referenced final summary: "Why Saturated Fat is Good for You". And it is. Be assured that it is. Evolution attests to this. The correct interpretation of massive datasets from a six decade's long scientific quest attests to this. The art of engineering problem solving attests to this. There is no doubt for this particular technical obsessive who has studied the whole gamut over the past year. And this book is for those who will never invest in that exercise, but wish to know the truth almost as comprehensively as if they had done so. I started this review with one of my favourite Shakespeare quotes - what would the great bard do with this story you might ask? Why, create an entertaining play to bring the important lessons to the masses - but would it be a tragedy or a farce? Perhaps a mixture of both. Educate and entertain yourself simultaneously, by being professionally led by Teicholz through the whole debacle - one of the biggest, fattest stories of our times. Ivor Cummins www.thefatemperor.com

Excellent, documenté et sourcé pour comprendre les méandres des complots médiatiques concernant l'alimentation !