June 17, 2015

By Jim Nowlan
NP Guest Columnist

A crusty dairy farmer friend recently barged into my office and unceremoniously plopped a thick book on my desk. He then harrumphed: “Now you can go out and eat a big steak and have lots of real cream on your strawberry shortcake!”
The 500-page book is The Big Fat Surprise (2014) by Nina Teicholz, an accomplished writer who studied biology at Stanford and Yale and has a graduate degree from Oxford University.
This is not your run of the mill, breezy diet book. It has 335 footnotes and lists almost 1,000 scientific books and articles in the bibliography.
After eight years of research, Teicholz concludes that the low fat, low cholesterol diet, almost deified since the 1950s, was based on inadequate science, which never proved that saturated fat and high cholesterol cause heart disease.
Among those who have apparently changed their perspectives on saturated fats and health is Ronald Krauss, MD, PhD, a giant among nutrition scientists. Krauss concludes, in Teicholz’ words, that eating saturated fat is healthier than eating carbohydrates.
In other words, says Teicholz, “Cheese is probably healthier than bread. And eggs and bacon better than oatmeal.”     Login or Subscribe to read the rest of this story.