Rate this book

Big Fat Lies (2012)

by David Gillespie(Favorite Author)

3.89 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

0670076023 (ISBN13: 9780670076024)

languge

English

genre

Food & Cookbooks

publisher

Penguin Viking

review 1: So in a world of diet books, nutrition books and exercise books, we have a book written by a lawyer (?!) which claims that dieting makes you fat, the nutrition bodies of the world are lying to you, and exercise is a waste of time better spent reading his book.Really?I picked this up, read a few chapters that interested me most (there is a fair bit of "technical" hoo-hah), and skimmed the rest.Gillespie's drum is that we eat too much sugar (well, yeah), polyunsaturated fats, particularly seed oils, are reallyreallyreally bad for us and will give us cancer, and nutritionists are lying to us because they are funded by Crisco. Or whoever. As Gillespie seems to feel free to cherry pick his research, I feel equally at liberty to cherry pick his book.1. Yes, we do eat too much su... moregar. Yes, it does make us fat.2. Natural and unprocessed is best, no question about it. Processed foods are chock full of hidden sugar, additives and seed oils (the Lord Voldemort of the nutrition world, according to Gillespie).3. Yes, I'm sure that most of these additives are not good for us in the long term and are making us very sick in many ways.But that's the end of my agreement with Gillespie. He's simply plain wrong on exercise and shows a complete lack of understanding of exercise physiology. His idea that 30 minutes of strenuous exercise is pointless because you'll only burn the calories in a Tim Tam ignores the afterburn effect of exercise, building muscle, losing fat and the effect on metabolism, and although he rattles off a tiny paragraph about some of the other effects of exercise, he exhorts his reader to lie on the couch and read his book instead of going for a walk. His list of foods you can eat and not eat reads like most of the fad diets he poo-poos in his book. His insistence that all saturated fat is good (lash into the butter, lads!) - sounds like a quick route to a heart attack to me.As for me, well, call me old-fashioned, but I will not change anything after reading this. I'll still try and stay away from processed foods (while still raiding the fridge at work for the odd Tim Tam), I'll keep using butter and olive oil to fry (but as little as possible), and I'll keep eating a wide range of foods, lots of fruit and vegetables, and enjoying daily exercise for its many benefits.David Gillespie - just another fad diet book.
review 2: A compelling analysis of the evidence (or lack thereof) about the role of polyunsaturated fats in our health and the potential for them to cause serious harm. If it is true, then everyone needs to know. I would really like to hear a nutritionist or health person's genuine response to the arguments in this book (rather than just assertions that because of what is currently taught he must be wrong). Amazing book. less

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