The Big Fat Surprise: Why Butter, Meat, and Cheese Belong in a Healthy Diet Hardcover - 2014

Dish up the red meat, eggs, and whole milk! In this well researched and captivating narrative, veteran food writer Nina Teicholz proves how everything weâÈçve been told about fat is wrong.

For decades, Americans have cut back on red meat and dairy products full of âÈêbadâÈë saturated fats. We obediently complied with nutritional guidelines to eat âÈêheart healthyâÈë fats found in olive oil, fish, and nuts, and followed a Mediterranean diet heavy on fruits, vegetables, and grains. Yet the nationâÈçs health has declined. What is going on?

In The Big Fat Surprise, Teicholz reveals how sixty years of nutrition science has gotten it so wrong: how overzealous researchers have made basic scientific mistakes that, through a mix of ego and bias, allow dangerous misrepresentations to become dogma, and how scientists who dared oppose this consensus have been ostracized. For eight years, Teicholz has pored over the massive research literature and interviewed hundreds of leading experts to unravel the shockingly distorted claims of nutrition studies. She brings these researchers to life and shows how their ambitions, loyalties, and rivalries have undermined a field of research already full of difficult pitfalls.

With a lively narrative style akin to Michael PollanâÈçs in The OmnivoreâÈçs Dilemma and the scientific rigor of Gary Taubes in Good Calories, Bad Calories, Teicholz convincingly upends the conventional wisdom about all fats. Her groundbreaking claim is that more dietary fat leads to better health, wellness, and fitness. Science shows that reducing the saturated fat in our diets has been disastrous for our health as a nation, and we can, guilt-free, welcome these âÈêwhole fatsâÈë back into our lives.