The Big Fat Surprise cover art

The Big Fat Surprise

Why Butter, Meat, and Cheese Belong in a Healthy Diet

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The Big Fat Surprise

By: Nina Teicholz
Narrated by: Erin Bennett
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About this listen

A New York Times bestseller
Named one of
The Economist’s Books of the Year 2014
Named one of
The Wall Street Journal’s Top Ten Best Nonfiction Books of 2014
Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Books of 2014
Forbes’s Most Memorable Healthcare Book of 2014

In
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.

©2014 Nina Teicholz (P)2014 Blackstone Audiobooks
Biological Sciences Diets, Nutrition & Healthy Eating Social Sciences Heartfelt Low carb Cooking Oil

What listeners say about The Big Fat Surprise

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could be the healthiest food book in last century

well worth the read
taking an open mind looking at the research

then give the diet a chance you won't look back at the standard diet again

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Fascinating and eye opening

Packed with startling revelations. Will be listening again to better remember some of the detail.

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Too detailed

Very long winded. Parts interesting but most probably more for a professional. Narrator was annoying with her American accent

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brilliant

listen to it and then listen to it again. you and your loved ones health and lives may depend on it.

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Not quite what I was hoping for

This is a really great book if you are looking for the background of how we have been screwed over for many years by the so called experts. The author has done an excellent job on bringing all the studies and story behind it all in this book.
It would be a fabulous read for any health professional. As a layperson, I was just after some info on how to incorporate fat into my diet, which the author does discuss but only at the very end of the book.
I am certainly not sorry I listened to this, I did enjoy it and at least I know where all the BS came from now but if you are after diet advice, look elsewhere.
Narrator did a great job and made this book very listenable.

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Loved it!

So well researched, so damn sensible and all round fascinating! I love Erin Bennett's narrative, she's so easy to listen to, a good American accent!

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How much corporate greed influences our lives

Excellent book and goes over all current and past diets to get the bottom of what’s best for us not just what’s best for the corporate bottom line

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The texts solid scientific evidence

This is an important review of diet as it relates to heart disease and other chronic diseases. The reader will be stunned to learn about the inaccuracies and miss-truths that are behind the diet recommended by governments and their organizations. This work is carefully and thoroughly researched and if we are fortunate, it will be read by health professions and policy makers the world over.

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Well Presented and informative

Really enjoyed this intellegent presentation of facts and the lack of bias in its entirity

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6 people found this helpful

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This book changed my life

I urge every health professional and member of the public who is interested in their health to read this book. It has changed my life

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4 people found this helpful

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