Oct20
The Hidden History of Saturated Fat with Nina Teicholz
What if one of the most widely accepted pieces of nutrition advice was never backed by solid evidence?
In this episode of the ReThink Health Podcast, I sit down with Nina Teicholz, investigative journalist and author of the New York Times bestseller The Big Fat Surprise. It’s one of my favorite books. In fact, it was the first one I read that pulled together the full history of how saturated fat, animal foods, and vegetable oils came to be viewed the way they are today.
Nina wasn’t always a critic of low-fat diets. She was a vegetarian for more than 20 years and struggled with her weight. When a magazine assigned her a story on trans fats, she began calling researchers and found that many were afraid to talk to her. That fear sparked nearly a decade of research and thousands of scientific studies.
In our conversation, Nina traces the story from the arrival of Crisco in 1911 to today’s dietary guidelines. She explains how vegetable oils went from industrial byproducts to “heart-healthy” staples, how one charismatic scientist shaped national policy, and why large clinical trials that challenged that policy were left unpublished or ignored for decades.
You’ll learn:
- Why researchers have been afraid to question the low-fat, low-saturated-fat message, and what happens to those who do
- The flaws Nina found in the Seven Countries Study, the main evidence behind early fat guidelines
- The large clinical trial whose results went unpublished for 17 years, and what it found
- What more than 20 recent scientific reviews have concluded about saturated fat and heart disease
- How conflicts of interest may shape the committees that write national nutrition policy
- The food rating system that scored sugary cereals higher than eggs and beef
- What Nina believes the research shows about seed oils, oxidation, and inflammation
- Why dietary cholesterol is no longer listed as a “nutrient of concern,” and why most people never heard
If you’ve ever felt confused by conflicting nutrition advice, this episode will help you understand where it came from, and give you better questions to bring to your healthcare provider.
Watch the full conversation on YouTube.
Prefer audio? Listen below or on Spotify & Apple iTunes Podcasts.
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About Nina Teicholz
Nina Teicholz is an investigative science journalist and the author of the New York Times bestseller The Big Fat Surprise, which examines the science and history behind decades of advice to limit saturated fat and dietary cholesterol. She spent nearly 10 years researching the book, reviewing thousands of scientific studies along the way.
After the book’s publication, she founded the Nutrition Coalition, a nonprofit that works to bring rigorous science to U.S. nutrition policy. The group has pushed for greater scientific rigor and transparency in the Dietary Guidelines for Americans and tracks conflicts of interest among those who shape them.
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