There is a war brewing in U.S. nutrition. While stalwarts such as Mary Enig, Sally Fallon, Bruce Fife and others have been in the trenches fighting this war for years now with little publicity, Gary Taubes entered the battle in July 2002 with his article What if it's All Been a Big Fat Lie? This was published in the New York Times, and later Time Magazine ran it as their cover story.

In this article Gary Taubes easily showed everyone that low-fat diets don't work: they don't lead to weight loss, and they don't prevent heart disease. The scientific literature on this point is overwhelming. Why the media picked up Taubes' message when others have been saying the same thing for years is not clear to me, but Gary Taubes made Dr. Atkins and the low-carb diets overnight successes.

Taubes and Atkins were viciously attacked by the Diet Dictocrats (to borrow a term I believe was coined by Sally Fallon), but it didn't matter. In general, low-fat diets don't work, and low-carb diets do, and people could easily figure this out for themselves, at least in terms of weight loss.

But some people just don't get it, and low-fat diet proponents aren't going away just yet. The media continues to promote low-fat and anti-saturated fat thinking. On Google you can sign up for media alerts on certain search terms, and I have one set for "coconut oil," which brings me daily e-mail from Google of all stories published on the Internet each day using the term "coconut oil." Other than just simple recipes that might use coconut along with some "oil" that come up, the majority of stories I browse through each day are condemning trans fatty acids and lumping them together with saturated fats, including "coconut oil."

What one group is the most responsible for getting this anti-saturated fats and anti-coconut oil message out to the media? Without a doubt it is CSPI (the Center for Science in the Public Interest). CSPI is the most responsible for turning the public against tropical oils and getting coconut oil removed from the U.S. food industry. They are a multi-million-dollar "non-profit" group that claims to know more about nutrition than the public. Their mission in life is to protect you from the dangers of fats. And, unfortunately, the wording they publish on their own "nutritional expertise" often is drafted for bills in Congress--such is their influence.

Fortunately, in my Google alerts recently I did find one positive article in the media by a minority voice calling CSPI to task. (Note: Dr. Mary Enig has been calling CSPI to task for many years). This article was written and published today by Sandy Szwarc, an editor at Better Homes and Gardens.

Sandy alerts us to a study published by CSPI of chain restaurants that claimed kids' menus offered few healthful choices and that without labeling parents were unaware that what they were ordering was high in calories, bad fats and salt. It coincided with Sen. Tom Harkin's (D-Iowa) introduction of a bill requiring point-of-purchase labels for calories, fat and salt at all chain restaurants. This "study" was carried by every major newspaper and TV network in America in early March 2004, showing just how much influence CSPI has over the media.

But Sandy, unlike many others in the media, did not just accept CSPIs claims at face value. She has apparently done her homework on CSPI, as she states:

"CSPI's study was an egregious example that anything can be called a "study" nowadays. It wasn't a clinical trial that proved restaurant meals cause childhood obesity or have anything to do with it--there's no evidence of that. It wasn't published in a peer-reviewed journal, but in a CSPI fund-raiser, their Nutrition Action Healthletter. Most appalling, their sampling wasn't impartial or representative of restaurant meals; nor were their evaluation criteria based on sound nutrition."

Sandy goes on to show many of the flaws in CSPI's "research," including their historic anti-fat
campaigns against coconut oil.

The most alarming information in this article is the fact that CSPI is considered the authority on nutrition to many politicians, and certain bills are now before Congress that would force nutritional labeling for restaurants, AND also require their nutritional advice to be published to
the American public.

So please be informed about this. The Diet Dictocrats are starting to lose the battle in the free enterprise market place, where folks like you are making informed decisions about your dietary choices (and becoming healthier and slimmer as a result!) So the only course left to them is in the political arena, by trying to legislate what it is proper nutrition for you and your children, and by bringing pressure against the food industry when they don't conform to their standards.

So the war rages on. The question now is when is the media going to wake up and give equal time to the other side? Publishing Gary Taubes article was a step in the right direction, and articles like this one from Sandy Szwarc give us some hope.

As I said, most of the articles I get on coconut oil each day by Google are negative, and promote
the CSPI dogma of lumping saturated fats and coconut oil together with trans fatty acids. Be educated yourself on these issues by reviewing the research.

Dr. Mercola's Comments:

This article brings up an important point, and that is the importance of educating yourself to be aware of all sides of an issue, whether nutrition-related or otherwise. This is especially the case when dealing with your own health, as you cannot rely on the government, public interest groups or even solely on your doctor to make the best choices for you. You have to do that for yourself, and the best way to make healthy decisions is to be aware of the research and potential alternatives. In fact, this is why I first started this Web site years ago--to provide an outlet for the latest in health information that is free and available to the public so that you can take responsibility for your own health and make your own informed decisions. In your search for reliable, independent health information, please feel free to use the "search" feature located in the top-right corner of this page. This feature gives you access to many thousands of articles about physical, emotional and mental health. It is my vision to facilitate the spread of quality health information in order to change the medical paradigm from its current focus on disease treatment to one focused on disease prevention--and empower you to take control of your own health. Related Articles: Biased Medicine--Drug Companies Use Selective Reporting for New Drug Applications Some News Anchors Paid by Drug Companies Spreading Health Information on the Net Many Studies Found To Be Biased