Eat Fat, Lose Fat: The Healthy Alternative to Trans Fats by Sally Fallon Morell

Eat Fat, Lose Fat: The Healthy Alternative to Trans Fats Reviews

• 
  Nichole

  This is the best book on nutrition I've ever read and I've read dozens. Nutrition is my passion and everyone needs to learn about saturated fats, and how the government has manipulated the american diet for financial gain of oil companies (corn, canola, safflower, sunflower, etc.). Though this book can be used as a diet book, there are also sections on healing and just eating well, not losing weight. If you do nothing else, incorporate coconut oil, at the very least, into your diet.
• 
  Jodi

  This book deserves all the high ratings it has been given. I've read dozens of books on diet but this one really stood out.
  
  Part of the book was about weight loss but the bigger part was about health, and very useful.
  
  This book is probably the book I would recommend if you could only buy one book containing practical information about what to eat. We need to eat real food!
  
  I can't afford to follow every suggestion (grass fed organic meats only etc.), but I have already made changes to my diet that I know will be benficial to my health. (I'm just going to ignore the bits about eating grains and legumes though as they are not for me.)
  
  The only improvements I would suggest are a simplified list of what to eat and how much roughly of each food type that DOESN'T assume you'll eat nothing but their recipes, and more information on what to do if you are allergic/intolerant of dairy, eggs, wheat and are not eating all grains or legumes for health reasons and because high carb foods such as grains and legumes don't agree with you.
  
  I am going to try some raw milk though, to see if I can tolerate it.
  
  I got this book out from the library and ended up actually buying a copy because the recipes at the back all looked so good and useful. I almost never do that! But it really is just a 'keeper' in my opinion. Ignore the flashy cover and the title this is a solid book about health and diet.
  
  
• 
  Orinoco Womble (tidy bag and all)

  I had begun adding coconut oil to my diet before picking up this book. I had heard from a reputable source about the effects of coconut oil on memory loss, early-onset Alzheimers etc. so I was curious to see what this book had to say. I wasn't interested in yet another "miracle" diet, but in the science behind it. All of the studies cited are documented, chapter and verse, and anyone with access to JSTOR can check them out if they are so inclined. Yes, the writing style is repetitive, but having worked closely with professors of various scientific disciplines over the years, I recognise this as a symptom of academic writing for peer journals etc: abstract, article and conclusion always repeat the main points--probably because academics skim before reading to see if they really want to give it the time.
  
  The diet described is very much for the author's US audience, and does not contemplate cuisines which originally used the coconut oil--no curries, stir-fries or Asian dishes. They also recommend all-organic foods, "available at high end supermarkets." High end means "expensive", which puts it out of the power of people on fixed incomes. Besides, here in S. Europe, raw milk is unavailable to the average person, and "organic" usually means "three times the price, but not necessarily really organically produced." And I won't discuss my opinion of the author's thoughts on olive oil. She has a product and a diet plan to sell after all. But being an experienced cook I use my common sense, take what I can from the book and leave the rest.
  
  I began using coconut oil (2 Tbsp per day) about 2 months ago, at a time when my short-term memory had become frighteningly bad and my doctor was just saying, "It's a menopause thing, it's a low-thyroid thing (but she insists my thyroid levels, in spite of having Hashimoto's disease are "low but normal"), it's an age thing, as long as you're worried about it, it's nothing to worry about" (meaning if you're aware of it, it's not Alzheimer's.) After about a month, I began to lose some of the thyroid weight, slowly but surely. Two months in, my memory has improved markedly, I have less word-confusion, I've lost 10 lbs without calorie restriction, my incipient double chin is gone and the cellulite is nearly gone from my thighs. I am no longer freezing cold all the time, my hair and nails are much healthier, and I'm not starving 15 min after a meal, which would indicate that coconut oil does indeed stimulate metabolism and support thyroid function.
  
  Since reading this book, I have added cod liver oil capsules to my diet as well, though not in the amounts they stipulate--again, in the US such things are much cheaper and available in bulk, so I take the amount I can afford. I can't see myself making my own sauerkraut in this tiny apartment, or fermenting my own kefir, but the oils themselves are a valuable resource.
• 
  Angela Boord

  While I think this book has something important to say and more people should hear the basic message -- i.e, vegetable oils and trans-fats are the real culprit in heart disease,obesity, etc., not saturated fats from animals or coconut oil (in other words, real food) -- and Mary Enig's discussion of how her research was covered up various food corporations was a real eye-opener... I was disappointed that this book fell into the "nutrionism" trap, too. In other words, I don't think that people normally eat up to 6 tbsp of coconut oil a day, off the spoon or dissolved in tea. I can barely do one tbsp in a smoothie because it makes me nauseous. And I really don't have any desire to take ox bile to stimulate my bile production since I had my gall bladder removed several years ago.
  
  That said, I think the common sense messages that can be extrapolated from this book are good ones:
  
  Coconut oil is good for you. Incorporate it into your diet when you can.
  
  A diet with plenty of healthy fats will help you feel satisified longer, which will in turn help you to lose weight because you will eat less.
  
  Don't eat industrial food.
  
  Eat more fish!
• 
  Sue

  I want to take this book down to my doctor's surgery and lock them all in until they have read it and researched it and come to some sensible conclusions for a change!
  
  If you think polyunsaturated fats and oils are the future if you want to live a healthy life, you MUST read this book. If you aren't throwing your Sunflower Oil, your Corn Oil and a few others into the dustbin along with your margarines by the time you are half-way through, you must be crazy.
• 
  josey

  This book is a great addition to my library for a healthy diet. I prefer to take bits and pieces of information from many different diet types to create my own diet that works for me, and Eat Fat, Lose Fat provides a lot of healthy alternatives to our (unfortunately) normal gamut of foods that contain trans fats or other low-quality fats.
  
  I also appreciate Enig and Fallon's views on the important role of saturated fats (as also expressed in Fallon's book Nourishing Traditions), and this book has helped me integrate the all-around healthy and delicious coconut oil into my diet while providing a deeper understanding of how it improves our overall health!
• 
  Shirelle

  I read this book several years ago, and still base a lot of my eating habits on the author's ideas. She examines the lipid hypothesis, where we get the idea that saturated fat causes heart disease, obesity, etc. She looks at the recent history of the American food industry and talks about how the theories about carbohydrates and fats have been quietly disproven. I don't follow everything she says in the book in my own diet, but I do follow the basic premise that fat is not bad for you. I've recently lost forty lbs., and I still eat real butter on a daily basis :)
• 
  Shiloh

  This book was recommended by a friend and it had a lot of good information. Personally though, I am tired of all the diet/ nutrtion books that contradict each other continually. Partly which is why I refuse to diet. That and lack of will power and love for food. High fat/low fat, high protein/low protein, high carbs/low carbs, fasting/no fasting, cooked/raw, drink lots of water/you don't need that much water, caffeine/ no caffeine, eat these foods/avoid these foods, and the one thing they all seem to have in common - no sugar. Impossible.
• 
  Vivian

  This book gave me the final push I needed to fully commit to a healthier way of eating. An amazing resource with lots of recipes I want to try. Highly recommended.
• 
  Kendahl

  Good stuff. Breaks down fats, carbohydrates, and proteins, but breaks down fats in great detail. Turns out saturated fat can be quite good for you, depending on the source. Our ancestors have been eating healthy, saturated fats for a long time. Feel free to eat eggs all you want, as long as they are from pastured chickens. Have plenty of organic coconut oil, raw cream and whole milk and tallow from pastured cows, etc.
  
  Eat like your ancestors, and your health will benefit. You also might lose some weight along the way. (I have lost 5 pounds so far, and I have been healing my hormone imbalance and adrenal fatigue as well.)
• 
  Akehia

  This was a good quick read since I've already read through Nourishing Traditions. If you have read NT and/or if you already understand that fat is not a "bad" thing, then I don't seem much purpose in this book UNLESS you want to try one of their weight loss plans. This book gives a couple of different menu options (with recipes from NT) for how to lose weight over a couple of weeks. I didn't like that, in many cases, chunks of text was taken directly from NT. It was a lazy work on the authors' parts in my opinion.
• 
  Cassie

  Very interesting take on the good ol' lipid hypothesis (a.k.a: saturated fat will cause heart disease). I think Enig and Fallon did a super job of debunking the myth that saturated fat causes athersclerosis. They carefully reviewed the evidence, including the famed Framingham study, and one by one showed how these studies do not show a link between saturated fat and heart disease. Hmmm... I think I'll go eat a boiled egg slathered in butter and salt.
• 
  Katie

  Eat Fat, Lose Fat is a sensible and nourishing approach to weight loss based on traditional foods principles. The book is engaging and interesting to read, with just the right amount of technical information to leave you informed, but not bored. The menu plans are simple and easy to follow, as is the plentiful recipe section. Highly recommend this for anyone looking for a "diet" that nourishes their body instead of depriving it!
• 
  Wendy

  Tremendously helpful book. Does a great job of explaining how we need to eat and why whether someone needs to lose weight or not. I did not give it 5 stars merely because some of the recipes are only so-so but there are alot of great recipes out there now that follow these principles. For that matter, there are alot of recipes I already use that I could merely tweak and they became alot of healthier! Must read!
  
• 
  Racheal

  I hesitated to even put this on Goodreads because it's the first nutrition book I've read that sounds like a weight loss gimmick. I'm kind of embarrassed! but I'm reading it for the info on coconut oil :P
• 
  Jennifer

  One of my favorite books to re read when I need to heal my body again.
• 
  Teresa

  Ive been Keto / Low carb for two years, this is not the best book on the subject of “good fats” but it was well written and worth the read.
• 
  Doris Jean

  Love this book. It's a way of eating for a healthy life. Mary Enig was a world-class oil chemist. (She and Sally Fallon Morell previously wrote a wonderful cookbook called "Nourishing Traditions which is accurately based in nutrition for good health.)
  
  In Part One of "Eat Fat, Lose Fat...", there are four chapters called "The Truth About Fats"and they focus on dietary fats and explain why we need to eat fats, especially animal fats. We have been bullied and shamed out of eating fats by the diet dictocrats of corporations who profit by selling us their unhealthy soy, canola, corn and other vegetable oils. The book discusses health, fat fears, history, politics, acne, emotional problems, diabetes, colitis, skin wrinkles, fasting, vitamins, asthma, allergies and much more. It bares some of the corporate cover-ups.
  
  This book explains some of the chemistry, such as the difference between cis-fats and trans-fats and saturated and unsaturated, etc. You will learn about the importance of the ratio between omega-3 and omega-6 fats and how to add flax oil to sesame oil for the proper balance. Food certainly affects the metabolism of the body. Food and animal fats have a tremendous effect upon our glands and hormones, especially the adrenals and the thyroid.
  
  Part Two is "Real Foods – for Healing and Health". It also contains four chapters. The first chapter discusses "real food" and vitamins, enzymes and minerals. Real food together with healthy fats such as butter, cream, coconut and coconut oil and cream, fatty fish, cod liver oil, caviar, eggs, liver, organ meats all interact and are synergistic. I like fermented fish sauce (garum, liquamen) and I find the bitters (Angostura or Swedish) are effective to promote digestion of fats. The next three chapters are three diet plans which are overlapping, so choose one eating plan and skip the other two. One can decide whether their personal focus is quick weight loss, or health recovery, or everyday meals. My plan is the "Everyday Gourmet". Each eating plan includes a discussion of its particular core elements, what to do and what to avoid for that specific eating plan, a detailed shopping list specific to that plan, followed by tailored daily specific meal plans for that goal.
  
  Part Three is three chapters of healthy recipes and resources for obtaining things such as ferments that a busy person might want to buy from a good source. I want to keep this book for the recipes. One chapter is dedicated to recipes using coconut and another chapter is recipes with a variety of traditional healthy recipes using various healthy fats and oils.
  
  Throughout the book there are enlightening comments about fermented foods, enzymes, fish oils, , herbs, cravings, constipation, psychology and the gut, autism and all manner of health issues relating to food. I personally notice a major difference as I eat this way over time. I believe that any person following this way of eating would improve their health.
• 
  William Nist

  This book is about healthy eating through Coconut oil, fish eggs, liver (and other products), as well as cod liver oil supplements. It is sort of an Atkins diet with these products added. There are many recipes included.
  
  I guess I will have to make a decision at some point about low-carb and high-fat diets for health and weight control. The authors present compelling reasons why the standard dietary advice is wrong. It falls in with some other reads that I have recently completed. This is a major decision for anyone, since the approaches are almost mutually exclusive. (Except for eliminating Fructose and its aliases, which is common to almost all dietary regimes).
  
  I must admit that I have just lost 23 pounds on the Adkins, and that I have added some coconut oils to my diet; but these authors go further in both the amounts of coconut products necessary and their types.
  
  The Cod liver oil, I can easily do by substituting one of my Omega 3 fish oil tablets for some Cod Liver.
  
  Maybe at 65, my worries are trifling; a younger person would have to eat this way for many more years than faces me--with more significant benefits and/or dangers.
  
  Anyhow, its another broadside challenge to our low-fat, high-carb official recommendations that we get from the Government, Heart Association, Cancer Foundation, etc.
  
  Boun Appitito
  
  
• 
  Dave Riley

  Top of the fat eating pile...comes to me recommended. Essential read if you want to move your gut into radical edge of the dietary war zone . It's like committing incest: sleeping with saturated fats. Nonetheless, there wasn't much for me to take away as I find it far too much formatted by guru speak despite the science. Put me right off. Makes you think you are born again rather than simply fed. But I did learn about the joy of the coconut and especially coconut oil. And my penchant to embrace preserved stuff --as in pickling -- was given a bit of a nod. So the hype undermined its message and when the claims list of efficacy gets longer than my arm, I began to switch off.On the other hand
  Nourishing Traditions which I am reading now is much better: the arguments are more consistent and more carefully managed.
• 
  Holly

  I used this information when I began switching from low-fat/high carb to high fat/low carb. A lot of the recipes are simply wonderful. The information in the first half of the book is priceless. I gave the recipe book four stars because some of the recipes that were presented were a little too high in carbohydrates and made me hungry shortly after we ate. I think that doesn't help weight loss if you're hungry shortly afterwards.
• 
  Kristin

  This book has some great information, especially on the role of saturated fats (particularly coconut oil) in our diets. The first several chapters are well worth reading, but the book gets a little diet book-ish after that. However, if you are interested in learning more about using coconut oil in your daily diet this is definitely the book you've been looking for. And, there are some really amazing recipes at the end.
• 
  Nicole

  This book is vey good explaining problems with a lot of the oils we cook with today. It is very coconut driven, but if you read Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon, you will see more of the animal fats in there. This book is geared more to helping you loose weight or heal when your body systems are messed up. Nourishing Traditions is a cookbook but each section has a few pages of explanation before it gives recipes. And the beginning of the book has a lot of important information.