Summary of The Big Fat Surprise: by Nina Teicholz | Includes Analysis

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This is an Instaread Summary of The Big Fat Surprise by Nina Teicholz.

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Instaread, Inc
• Release date: May 18, 2016
• ISBN: 9781683782100

Book preview

Book Overview

Nina Teicholz shares nine years of investigative research in The Big Fat Surprise: Why Butter, Meat and Cheese Belong in a Healthy Diet. She learned through her extensive research that nothing she thought she knew about fats appeared to be accurate. This research began with studies that were done with the Masai and the Samburu peoples of Africa. These tribes consumed diets of almost all meat and thrived, without a trace of heart disease.

In the early 1950s, Ancel Keys, a pathologist and biologist at the University of Minnesota, developed the idea that saturated fat causes heart disease. Stubborn and outspoken, Keys made the right connections and pushed his idea into all the right circles until it eventually ended up being the basis for government diet and nutrition guidelines for all Americans. In 1961, the American Heart Association, Time Magazine, and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) institutionalized Keys’ ideas. Shortly afterwards, President Eisenhower had the first of several heart attacks, and his doctor, Dudley White, became a strong supporter of Keys’ ideas, moving them into the national spotlight.

By the late 1970’s, there were so many scientific studies that even researchers were overwhelmed. Postwar America was desperate to cure heart disease and a few influential leaders took control. A hypothesis emerged, huge sums of money were spent to test it, and the nutrition community supported it. Americans were urged to cut out meat, dairy, and dietary fat completely and replace them with fruits, vegetables, and grains. Saturated animal fats were to be replaced with polyunsaturated vegetable oils. A new program at the NIH, called the National Cholesterol Education Program, was formed, and the low-fat diet became the recommended diet of America.

Questions and studies emerged about applying the low-fat diet to women and children since all previous research had been conducted with middle-aged men. Several experts agreed that children on the low-fat diet would be deprived of vitamins and minerals essential for growth. They also decided that much of the research surrounding women and low-fat diets had been inaccurate or misinterpreted. A 2008 review of all studies by the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization concluded that there is no solid evidence that fat causes heart disease or cancer.

The Mediterranean Diet was promoted as a healthful and tasty alternative to the low-fat diet. It recommended a