The Big Fat Surprise

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What to expect

A New York Times bestsellerNamed one of The Economist’s Books of the Year 2014Named one of The Wall Street Journal’s Top Ten Best Nonfiction Books of 2014Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Books of 2014Forbes’s Most Memorable Healthcare Book of 2014In 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. Dish up the red meat, eggs, and whole milk!

For decades, Americans have cut back on red meat and dairy products full of “bad” saturated fats. We obediently complied with nutritional guidelines to eat “heart healthy” fats found in olive oil, fish, and nuts, and followed a Mediterranean diet heavy on fruits, vegetables, and grains. Yet the nation’s 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 Pollan’s in The Omnivore’s 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 “whole fats” back into our lives.

Critics Review

  • “A page-turner story of science gone wrong: what
    Gary Taubes did in Good Calories, Bad Calories for debunking
    the connection between fat consumption and obesity, Nina Teicholz now does in The Big
    Fat Surprise     for the purported connection between fat and heart
    disease. Misstep by misstep, blunder by blunder, Ms. Teicholz recounts the
    statistical cherry-picking, political finagling, and pseudoscientific bullying
    that brought us to yet another of the biggest mistakes in health and nutrition:
    the low-fat and low-saturated fat myth for heart health.”

    William Davis, MD, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Wheat Belly

  • “Nina Teicholz reveals the disturbing
    underpinnings of the profoundly misguided dietary recommendations that have
    permeated modern society, culminating in our overall health decline. But The
    Big Fat Surprise     is refreshingly empowering. This wonderfully
    researched text provides the reader with total validation for welcoming
    healthful fats back to the table, paving the way for weight loss, health, and
    longevity.”

    David Perlmutter, MD, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Grain Brain

  • “At last the whole truth about the luscious
    foods our bodies really need!”

    Christiane Northrup, MD, New York Times bestselling author

  • “This meticulously researched book thoroughly dismantles the
    current dietary dogma that fat—particularly saturated fat—is bad for us.
    Teicholz brings to life the key personalities in the field and uncovers how
    nutritional science has gotten it so wrong. There aren’t enough superlatives to
    describe this journalistic tour
    de force. I read it twice: once for the information and again just for
    the writing.”

    Michael R. Eades, MD, New York Times bestselling author of Protein Power

  • “For many years Americans have been told that low-fat diets are the best
    way to prevent heart disease and lose weight. While heart disease deaths
    have indeed dropped, the rate of heart disease has not and the obesity
    rate is increasing…This fascinating book raises
    important issues as Americans battle obesity, diabetes, and
    cardiovascular disease…Thought provoking
    and well worth purchasing.”

    Library Journal (starred review)

  • “Journalist Teicholz combs the science, or lack thereof, to learn how the fats in the American diet grew horns and cloven hooves…Solid, well-reported science in the Gary Taubes mold.”

    Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

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