The big fat surprise : why butter, meat, and cheese belong in a healthy diet / Nina Teicholz.

Investigative journalist Nina Teicholz reveals here 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. For decades, we have been told that the best possible diet involves cutting back on fat, especially saturated fat, and that if we are not getting healthier or thinner, we are not trying hard enough. But what if the low-fat diet is itself the problem? Based on a nine-year investigation, Teicholz shows how the misinformation about saturated fats took hold in the scientific community and the public imagination, and how recent findings have overturned these beliefs. She explains why the Mediterranean Diet is not the healthiest, and how we might be replacing trans fats with something even worse. She upends the conventional wisdom with the groundbreaking claim that more, not less, dietary fat--including saturated fat--is what leads to better health and wellness. Science shows that we have been needlessly avoiding meat, cheese, whole milk, and eggs for decades and that we can now, guilt-free, welcome these delicious foods back into our lives.--From publisher description.

Challenges popular misconceptions about fats and nutrition science, revealing the distorted claims of nutrition studies while arguing that more dietary fat can lead to better health, wellness, and fitness.

London ; Brunswick, Victoria : Scribe, 2014.

ix, 479 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

The fat paradox: good health on a high-fat diet -- Why we think saturated fat is unhealthy -- The low-fat diet is introduced to America -- The flawed science of saturated versus polyunsaturated fats -- The low-fat diet goes to Washington -- How women and children fare on a low-fat diet -- Selling the Mediterranean diet: what is the science? -- Exit saturated fats, enter trans fats -- Exit trans fats, enter something worse? -- Why saturated fat is good for you -- Conclusion.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 407-453) and index.