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"Food without lipids is usually bland and lacking fragrance because aroma can't stick
around long enough for us to enjoy it," Bouzari writes. That's why fat-free cream cheese
is terrible, he writes, even though it's close in texture to the real thing.
When Nina Teicholz was growing up in North Berkeley, she ate low-fat dairy products
while avoiding red meat, eggs and the Gouda and chevre filling cases at the nearby
Cheese Board Collective. She even rejected her mother's invitations to celebrate
birthdays at Chez Panisse, since the fixed-price menu was always full of lamb and tripe.
At the time, Teicholz was, in essence, a follower of the low-fat diet enshrined in the
federal government's Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which influence school lunch
menus, food labels and doctors' advice. Little did she know she would become one of
that diet's most vocal critics as author of "The Big Fat Surprise: Why Butter, Meat &
Cheese Belong in a Healthy Diet."
"The basic contention of my book and my work is that the guidelines were launched
based on weak science," said Teicholz, who was recently visiting family in Berkeley from
her home in New York.
The most recent version of the federal guidelines,
2015-2020
Dietary Guidelines for
Americans
, did remove a previous limit on total fat, as well as cholesterol. But they still
recommend a limit on saturated fat to
10
percent of calories per day.
Photo: Paul Chinn, The Chronicle