There is so much in this book that is shocking. There are two quotes on two pages in particular that grabbed me even more. When I finished reading, I went back to find them. I'd like to share here. The quotes are from pages 30 and 123. Both refer to the (now I understand unsubstantiated) recommendation for eating low-fat diets. " Changing the composition of the fats we eat could have profound physiological effects throughout the body. Our brains, for instance, are 70 percent fat, mostly in the form of a substance known as myelin that insulates nerve cells and, for that matter, all nerve endings in the body. Fat is the primary component of all cell membranes."
And on page 123, Peter Cleave said " Mankind has been eating saturated fats for hundreds of thousands of years. For a modern disease to be related to an old-fashioned food is one of the most ludicrous things I have ever heard in my life. If anybody tells me that eating fat was the cause of coronary disease, I should look at them in amazement. But, when it comes to the dreadful sweet things that are served up....that is a very different proposition."

If you were to read only one non-fiction book this year about fook, cooking, eating ect. I would suggest this book.

I currently have my father's well-marked edition, and have gone out to find other things on the net about Mr Taubes.

I think the thing that clarified things for me from the book, was listening to him talk about what has happened to native american's. He readily trashes the idea that we are so "affluent" that we are now getting fat.

It happened to the Pima that were the arguably the most affluent tribe in the America's, and were healthy and slim as such, and then went to the poverty stricken, and fat.

Sort of makes you go """"hmmmmm??? "" doesn't it?