Includes bibliographical references (pages 409-456) and index.

The fat paradox: good health on a high-fat diet -- Why we think saturated fat is unhealthy -- The low-fat diet is introduced to America -- The flawed science of saturated versus polyunsaturated fats -- The low-fat diet goes to Washington -- How women and children fare on a low-fat diet -- Selling the Mediterranean diet: what is the science? -- Exit saturated fats, enter trans fats -- Exit trans fats, enter something worse? -- Why saturated fat is good for you -- Conclusion.

Investigative journalist Nina Teicholz reveals here 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. For decades, we have been told that the best possible diet involves cutting back on fat, especially saturated fat, and that if we are not getting healthier or thinner, we are not trying hard enough. But what if the low-fat diet is itself the problem? Based on a nine-year investigation, Teicholz shows how the misinformation about saturated fats took hold in the scientific community and the public imagination, and how recent findings have overturned these beliefs. --From publisher description.