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The Big Fat Surprise: Why Butter, Meat, and Cheese Belong in a Healthy Diet Audiobook
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Publisher Description
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.
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"The Big Fat Suprise is an excellent account of neutrition science bring clarity to the debate regarding the “Diet Heart” hypothesis misleading our nation into believing that a low fat and high carbohydrate diet is heart healthy. Nina weaves her way through the important developments in science, how the research findings have been skewed to support personal belief rather than scientific proof. We have been convinced for decades that red meat and saturated fat are bad, when in fact they are actually heart healthy. Thus the title, “The Big Fat Suprise”. Thank You Nina!"
— Greg Winterbutn (5 out of 5 stars)
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“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)
Awards
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A Library Journal Best Book of 2014
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One of Kirkus Reviews’ Best Books of 2014
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An Economist Best Book of 2014
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A 2014 Wall Street Journal Best Book
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A Mother Jones Best Book of 2014
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A 2014 Forbes Magazine Pick for Most Memorable Healthcare Book
The Big Fat Surprise Listener Reviews
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Xavier Rivadulla, 10/27/2023
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David Smith, 3/3/2021
About Nina Teicholz
Nina Teicholz is an investigative journalist and author of the International (and New York Times) bestseller, The Big Fat Surprise. The Economist named it a top science book of 2014, and it was also named a 2014 “Best Book” by the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Mother Jones, and Library Journal. Before taking a deep dive into researching nutrition science, Teicholz was a reporter for National Public Radio and also contributed to many publications, including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, the New Yorker, and the Economist. She attended Yale and Stanford where she studied biology and majored in American Studies. She has a master’s degree from Oxford University and served as associate director of the Center for Globalization and Sustainable Development at Columbia University. She lives in New York City.
About Erin Bennett
Erin Bennett is an Earphones Award–winning narrator and a stage actress who played Carlie Roberts in the BBC radio drama Torchwood: Submission. She can be heard on several video games. Regional theater appearances include the Intiman, Pasadena Playhouse, Arizona Theatre Company, A Noise Within, Laguna Playhouse, and the Getty Villa. She trained at Boston University and the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.