Know Your Fats: The Complete Primer for Understanding the Nutrition of Fats, Oils and Cholesterol

Ignore the anonymous "reader"'s review titled "Disappointing." Anonymous reviews immediately create a suspect impression. For all anyone might know, the "reader" could be a well-known other "author" of a popular book on fats. The "reader" in his review does not come up with a cohesive enough overview on why Dr. Enig's book is "disappointing." He complains of issues that has nothing to do with Dr. Enig's research as a scientist, how the chemical structures and patterns of fatty acids *and* most importantly, how they work in the human body. He does not prove in any way of how Dr. Enig's knowledge of lipid chemistry fails. His assertion that the fatty acids in animal fat has changed from 100 years ago is a no-brainer and a plainly dumb arguing point: of course the quality of the fatty acids have changed, because most of the way animals are raised today is so different from how they were 100 years ago: conditions, feeding, and treatment. The only way one may compare a cow from 100 years ago is to raise them on pastures, in organic methods.It is a self-evident factor that we should only be eating animals raised naturally, out of warehouses, without synthetic injections. The most important thing to remember about this book is that Dr. Enig has the kind of information and research that should be the basis for every single dietary and health-related consideration. This book is a virtual warning on how modern, processed fats might very well be the most crucial health menace our society faces. Considering all that Dr. Enig knows, we are headed for nutritional health disaster unless the government, doctors, medical institutions and food producers pay heed to the alarming indifference of what kind of stuff is being put into the bodies of humans and animals. The chemically processed fats that are in all factory made foods are virtual poisons which have, and threaten to endanger the health of humans and animals. We're talking here about substances which the human body not only cannot recognize genetically, but to which the cells react in a very negative way: what this amounts to is an insidious compromise of the very protective forces of our bodies were given to us by nature. The damaged polyunsaturates in mass-produced oils and trans fats, with their rancid profiles and corrupted forms, can actually foster the kinds of free-radicals and inflammations which invite disease, decay and degeneration. Dr. Enig's research proves that old-fashioned, nature-made fats from animals, tropical oils, certain seeds, are the only ones we should be eating. The author's straightforward treatises behind her scientific analysis is sound, easy to understand, and irrefutably based on logic. It is unfortunate that Udo Erasmus' book on the same topic has gained such wide currency (its title was boldly "marketable"), because Enig's book is based on true science rather than contradictory, questionable methods of presenting data. This book is a brilliant piece of research contained

This is quite simply the best book available on lipid chemistry in nutrition that is accessible to non-scientists. It lists and describes the actions of fats in our diet, and the role fats play in our body chemistry and health. Dr. Enig takes us all the way from chemical formulas and molecular diagrams to descriptions of various kinds of oils and fats used in cooking, as well as the sources and makeup of different types of oils and fats.Dr. Enig pulls no punches in discussing misunderstood or misused research, and this honesty is welcome and refreshing, not to mention possibly life saving. It is so tiresome trying to wade through the hype and PR noise around nutrition. Like medical research, the food business is about Big Money, and truth seems to be a stranger to that part of our society. More and more, one must become an informed advocate for one's own health and welfare. This book is an important tool for the enlightened consumer.The book is well written in a very clear style with no extraneous scientific jargon. It is well referenced and cited, which I like in a book that discusses scientific research. These days people have much more access to original research papers than ever before. If you get only one book on fats in your diet, this should be it. The research and information is solid, free of fads and commercial influence.

This book, written by one of the world's leading lipid biochemists, is a much needed title in today's "fat-phobic" world. Discarding politically correct notions that saturated fats are unhealthy, Dr. Mary Enig presents a thorough, in-depth, and understandable look at the world of lipids. The publication of Know Your Fats is a rare treat: it is, to this reviewer's knowledge, the ONLY book on fats and oils for the consumer and the professional written by a recognized authority in the field. Virtually all of the titles on fats and oils in print now are either too technical to be accessible by the layman, or are too error-laden to be worth the paper they are printed on.Mary Enig made her mark in the nutritional world in 1978 when she and her colleagues at the University of Maryland published a now-famous paper in the American journal Federation Proceedings. The paper directly challenged government assertions that higher cancer rates were associated with animal fat consumption. Enig, et al, concluded that the data actually showed vegetable oils and trans-fatty acids to be the culprits in both cancer and heart disease--not naturally saturated fats that people have been eating for millennia. In the ensuing years, Enig and her colleagues focused their work on determining the trans-fatty acid content of various food items, as well as publishing research that clearly demonstrated TFA's to be potent carcinogens, prime factors in heart disease, disruptors of immune function, and worse.Enig's book begins like any other on lipid biochemistry and discusses the nature of saturates, monounsaturates, polyunsaturates, and trans-fatty acids. Included also is a revealing discussion of cholesterol and its vital importance to the body. The first chapter also clearly discusses the molecular structure of different fatty acids (with diagrams) and presents the metabolic conversion products of each of the major fatty acids (oleic, linoleic, linolenic, and palmitoleic).The physiology of fats and cholesterol is fully covered in chapter two. Almost half of this chapter is devoted to shattering popular myths about saturated fats and their roles as disease promoters. Not mincing any words, Enig methodically demonstrates the faulty data and reasoning behind the ideas that saturates either cause or contribute to heart disease, diabetes, colon cancer, mental illness, obesity, and cerebrovascular disease. For example, after trashing the "data" that supposedly prove that beef and beef fat caused colon cancer, Enig flatly concludes: "And now, more than three (3) decades after the initial fraudulent report, the anti-animal fat hypothesis continues to lead the nutrition agenda. It was a false issue then, and it remains a false issue today."Subsequent chapters deal with fats historically used in Western diets; the fatty acid composition of various oils and fats such as coconut, butter, lard, and olive oil; and a succinct summary of "fat facts." The book is rounded out by detailed appendi

I first learned of this book about two years ago when listening to The People's Pharmacy on National Public Radio. Dr. Enig was the special guest that day and talked with hosts Joe and Terry Graedon about Knowing Your Fats and its recurring themes revolving around the essential roles that fats and oils can play in our daily diet.One of her themes was that diets have been so badly stereotyped in the West that many Americans, including nutritionists and physicians, have come to propose that the only healthy diet is that of a strict vegetarian. She then stated that,in contrast to this widely held opinion, the typical diet in China, where the citizens are regarded as typically healthy by these same individuals advocationg strict vegetarianism, is far from free of animal products and by-products. She said that, in fact, a main cooking additive in the Chinese diet is lard, a fat that has been labeled, perhaps mislabeled, as a contributor to heart disease and obesity.Dr. Enig then continued that consumer activists who are trying to eliminate animal fats and coconut oils from food products either have been or still are misinformed. She stated that many of these advocates, despite their good intentions of contributing to a healthier American population, want the food manufacturers to replace animal fats with partially hydrogenated oils and fats that, according to the studies of her and her colleagues, are even more harmful than the former. For instance, their findings concluded that trans fatty acids from partial hydrogenation can further contribute to heart disease in the following ways: 1. decrease the amount of HDL cholesterol (the good cholesterol), 2.increase the amount of LDL cholesterol (the bad cholesterol), and 3. hamper one's ability to keep insulin levels under control. All in all, the above are just a few of several topics well-detailed in Knowing Your Fats. Included in the book are charts that categorize the types of fats and oils that can be used in cooking and how each can be beneficial and/or harmful for one's health.Dr. Enig has done an excellent job with this book. I highly recommend it.

This is one of the better nutrition books available today. I learned a lot, and Dr. Enig wrote it in a way that made it understandable to the non-lipid chemists among us who would be reading it. She has done the world a great service by explaining the real place in the human diet for saturated fats and cholesterol. I "lived" on a fat-free diet for about 15 years, and in that time managed to disrupt every major endocrine and metabolic process in my body. When I came to my senses (thanks to a book called "The Metabolic Trap" by Calvin Ezrin, MD), and began to add meat and fat back into my diet, I was able to reverse EVERY SINGLE SYMPTOM. With no medications, no special medical treatment, no doctors, I restored my health by simply replacing SATURATED FATS in my diet. Nothing else. My overall cholesterol at my last test was 179, and my blood pressure remains in the low-normal range. This book vindicated what I had already figured out, and explained it in terms simple enough for anyone to understand. I used up a whole yellow marker on it, and was pleased with the careful and thorough way she explained each fatty acid and its role in metabolism. I am really glad she stood her ground in the face of the criticism I am sure she suffered for her stand, which is 180 degrees opposed to the current medical "wisdom" of "Eat lots of carbs!" "Don't eat saturated fats!" "Don't eat cholesterol!" The standard American diet (correctly and aptly acronymed "SAD") is a mishmosh that consists of 65% BREAD ("complex carbohydrates"). This, in the nation that had the highest-protein diet in the world until somebody came up with the stupidly misguided idea that dietary fat equaled body fat, and that essential saturated fatty acids were somehow responsible for heart attacks. How this "fact" was arrived at in view of HISTORICAL facts of primitive and modern unrefined diets, I will never understand. Thanks, Dr. Enig. I hope you write another book about saturated fats in the diet and metabolism, and I hope I'm the first person to read it! http://www.opinions3.com