Dr. Mary Enig

Photo of Mary Enig from Weston A. Price Foundation

Mary G. Enig (1931-2014) is known for her research and views on fats—saturated fats and trans fats in particular and her advocacy of a whole foods diet.  Her views for a long time were shunned but have increasingly gained adherence.

A biochemist and nutritionist Mary Enig received her Ph.D. in nutritional sciences from the University of Maryland, College Park, and is a member of the American Society for Nutritional Sciences, a Master of the American College of Nutrition and president of the Maryland Nutritionists Association.  Dr. Enig is a former contributing editor of the scientific journal Clinical Nutrition and consulting editor of the Journal of the American College of Nutrition. As a lipids expert she has been consulted by governments both domestic and foreign and has been mentioned in publications like The New York Times and The Washington Post among others.

Books 

• Know Your Fats: The Complete Primer for Understanding the Nutrition of Fats, Oils and Cholesterol  

with Sally Fallon Morell:

• Nourishing Traditions 
• Eat Fat, Lose Fat

 
Websites

She is a co-founder of the Weston A. Price Foundation which hosts many of her essays and papers and a member of The International Network of Cholesterol Skeptics (THINCS).

Saturated Fats
For many years Dr. Mary Enig's research and views on the relative merits of saturated fat (like those found in butter and coconut oil) in relation to other kinds of fat and skepticism towards the contribution of cholesterol to disease fell into disfavor with the rise in popularity of the lipid hypothesis and diet-heart hypothesis and their acceptance by major medical organizations and institutions. This has caused her to adopt an often strident tone in expressing her views that has been used against her at times. An example is the The New England Journal of Medicine review by Dr. Neil J.Stone of the book Coronary Heart Disease: The Dietary Sense and Nonsense edited by Dr. George V. Mann in which Dr. Enig contributed a chapter, a review to which Dr. Enig gave a reply. Many years later Dr. Stone was the head of a committee involved in controversial guidelines recommending the prescription of statins to more people.  The field remains controversial with recent evidence on saturated fats increasingly tending to support Dr. Enig's position while institutions stick with their previous recommendations. 

Trans Fats
A reevaluation of saturated fats would not be the first instance Dr. Enig's peers in the medical community would be revising their views to more closely resemble hers. As a pioneering lipids researcher she has also been among the earliest experts warning about the potential dangers of trans fats.  These dangers have since been widely recognized resulting in trans fats increasingly being removed from food products.  It was an issue to which she played a notable role.  She contributed valuable data to widely cited seminal scientific papers on the topic by the likes of Walter Willett et al.  She was also a consultant in the public information campaign waged by Joseph Stephens in his lawsuit against Oreo cookies because of their trans fat content. The lawsuit was eventually dropped when the makers of Oreo cookies announced they would reformulate the recipe to contain less trans fats.

The Oiling of America
Mary Enig is a witness to the backstage dealing involved in coming up with nutritional policy and guidelines.  In her article "The Oiling of America" she details the influence wielded by the food industry in scientific research and the intimidation tactics used.  She is a vocal critic of unsaturated vegetable seed oils like soybean oil and canola.

Other Food Issues
This record in combination with her advocacy of traditional whole foods like raw milk and grass-fed meat has made her a champion of the unprocessed natural foods movement, but keep her a controversial figure. As an advocate of raw milk and critic of soy products she is still well in the minority.

Oil Blend
A cooking oil mixture Mary Enig suggests in her book Eat Fat Lose Fat that is suitable for salads and mayonnaise and cooking at low heat is the following

1 cup coconut oil
1 cup cold-pressed sesame oil
1 cup extra virgin olive oil

It combines a cooking oil predominantly composed of saturated fats with one made up mainly of polyunsaturated fats and another that is mostly monounsaturated. Using less processed virgin oils means they have more polyphenols and thus retain more antioxidant properties.  

Selected Works

• Enig, Mary. (1993). "Diet, serum cholesterol and coronary heart disease". In Mann, GV (ed): Coronary Heart Disease: The Dietary Sense and Nonsense – An evaluation by scientists. London: Janus Publishing. pp 36–60. ISBN 1857560728.
• Enig, MG; Munn, RJ; Keeney, M. (1978). "Dietary fat and cancer trends--a critique". Federation proceedings 37 (9): 2215–20. PMID 566221.
• Enig, MG; Pallansch, LA; Sampugna, J; Keeney, M. (1983). "Fatty acid composition of the fat in selected food items with emphasis on trans components". Journal of the American Oil Chemists’ Society 60 (10): 1788. doi:10.1007/BF02680357.
• Enig, MG. (1984). Modification of Membrane Lipid Composition and Mixed-Function Oxidases in Mouse Liver Microsomes by Dietary Trans Fatty Acids. Doctoral Dissertation for the University of Maryland.
• Enig, MG; Budowski, P; Blondheim, SH. (1984). "Trans-unsaturated fatty acids in margarines and human subcutaneous fat in Israel". Human nutrition. Clinical nutrition 38 (3): 223–30. PMID 6086551.
• Enig, MG; Atal, S; Keeney, M; Sampugna, J. (1990). "Isomeric trans fatty acids in the U.S. diet". Journal of the American College of Nutrition 9 (5): 471–86. PMID 2258534.
• Enig, Mary. (1995). Trans Fatty Acids in the Food Supply: A Comprehensive Report Covering 60 Years of Research.
• Enig, Mary. (April 25, 1996). "A New Look at Coconut Oil – Health and Nutritional Benefits from Coconut Oil: An Important Functional Food for the 21st Century".  Presented at the AVOC Lauric Oils Symposium, Ho Chi Min City, Vietnam.
• Enig, Mary and Sally Fallon. (1999). "The Skinny on Fats". Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats. New Trends.
• Enig, Mary and Sally Fallon. (2000). "The Oiling of America". The Weston A. Price Foundation. 
• Lieberman, Shari; Enig, Mary G.; Preuss, Harry G. (2006). "A Review of Monolaurin and Lauric Acid: Natural Virucidal and Bactericidal Agents". Alternative and Complementary Therapies 12 (6): 310–314. doi:10.1089/act.2006.12.310.

More Information

• Allyn, Karen. (2006). Interview with Mary Enig. Forward Motion. Washington, DC.
• Passwater, Richard A. (November 1993 – January 1994). Health Risks from Processed Foods and Trans Fats. Interview with Dr. Mary Enig. Whole Foods Magazine.
• Schimke, David. (January – February 2004). Big Fat Controversy. experiencelife.com.
• Teicholz, Nina. (June 2004). Heart Breaker. Gourmet. 

Drs. Paul and Shou-Ching Jaminet

Paul Jaminet and Shou-Ching Jaminet are the authors of the book Perfect Health Diet. Paul Jaminet is an astrophysicist and software entrepreneur and his wife Shou-Ching Shih Jaminet is a molecular biologist and cancer researcher at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School.  Having both experienced chronic medical problems, they detail how they overcame them by changing their diet in their book and on their website perfecthealthdiet.com.

In general they advocate a low carbohydrate diet but are not as strict as other low-carb proponents in setting the lower bound for carbohydrate intake.  They believe that food toxicity, malnutrition, and chronic infections by bacteria, viruses, fungi, and protozoa are primary factors in impaired health and premature aging and that a diet such as theirs should be a first treatment option or adjunct to therapy in most cases. They have contributed to the discussion of low carbohydrate diets by arguing that some carbohydrate intake may be good for the formation of mucus in the body and that it may help counteract feelings of fatigue.  They recommend avoiding grains, legumes, vegetable oils, and sugar but label rice, tubers and plantains as "safe starches" in small quantities. This has led to some criticism from other members of the low carbohydrate community who advocate even lower or even zero levels of carbohydrate in the diet especially those who are treating diabetes.  The Jaminets note theirs is only a general recommendation to healthy individuals and those with diabetes may need to make adjustments.  

Gary Taubes

Gary Taubes (April 30, 1956 — ) is a journalist and author known for his investigations of a number of controversial issues in science. His articles have appeared in publications such as Science, Discover, and The New York Times among others. He wrote the books Nobel Dreams (1987) about the pursuit of a Nobel Prize in the field of particle physics, Bad Science: The Short Life and Weird Times of Cold Fusion (1993) which deals with the controversy surrounding an infamous claim of a success in cold fusion, and Good Calories, Bad Calories (2007), which is titled The Diet Delusion in the United Kingdom, and Why We Get Fat (2011) that question the medical establishment's dietary advice and the science behind it. He is the three time winner of the Science in Society Award of the National Association of Science Writers and a recipient of an MIT Knight Science Journalism Fellowship for 1996-97.

Originally from Rochester, New York, he attended Harvard University studying applied physics and then aerospace engineering at Stanford (MS, 1978).  He received a master’s degree in journalism at Columbia University in 1981. His early work mainly dealt with scientific issues in physics but have shifted into medicine and nutrition.

He has become a well-known critic of the science justifying low-fat diets and the warnings attached to salt and fat intake arguing the largely epidemiological evidence they are based on is weak.  He is also a proponent of low-carbohydrate diets and is skeptical of the rationale that how much one eats—that a calorie is a calorie—is the sole determinant of weight in the dieting process and puts forth the alternative hypothesis that weight is also modulated by insulin sensitivity so that what one eats, whether carbohydrate or fat, is an important factor.

Sources

• Interview – Gary Taubes. (April 8, 2004). Frontline.
• Not All Calories Are Created Equal, Author Says. (November 2, 2007). NPR.
• Taubes, Gary. (1998). The (Political) Science of Salt. Science 281: 898-907.
• Taubes, Gary. (2001). The Soft Science of Dietary Fat. Science. 291: 2536-2545.
• Taubes, Gary. (July 7, 2002). What if It's All Been a Big Fat Lie? The New York Times Magazine.
• Taubes, Gary. (September 16, 2007). Do We Really Know What Makes Us Healthy? The New York Times.
• Taubes, Gary. (September 27, 2007). The Scientist and the Stairmaster. New York.
• Taubes, Gary. (February 2011). Is This Any Way to Lose Weight? Reader's Digest.
• Taubes, Gary. (April 5, 2012). Chocolate & Red Meat Can Be Bad for Your Science: Why Many Nutrition Studies Are All Wrong. Discover Magazine. 
• Taubes, Gary. (May 7, 2012). Why the Campaign to Stop America's Obesity Crisis Keeps Failing. Newsweek.
• Taubes, Gary. (June 2, 2012). Salt, We Misjudged You. The New York Times. 
• Taubes, Gary. (June 30, 2012). What Really Makes Us Fat. The New York Times.

Links

• Gary Taubes's website
• Nutrition Science Initiative (NuSI) website