Jacket Notes
In July 2015, I became one of few scientists in history to be prosecuted for expressing my opinion. The “hearing” (more accurately, a full-on legal trial) that the Association for Dietetics in South Africa and the Health Professions Council of South Africa brought against me lasted 25 days over more than three years. It ended in April this year when the independent panel found me innocent. But the council has chosen to appeal the verdict. The “hearing” reconvenes in February.
Lore of Nutrition: Challenging Conventional Dietary Beliefs, co-written with journalist Marika Sboros, explains that the hearing had nothing to do with my tweet. That was just a pretext. It was the outcome of my decision in December 2010 to change my diet from the highcarb, low-fat one I had advocated and followed for 33 years, to one high in fat.
I have learnt much from my Damascene moment. In particular, that the 1977 US Dietary Guidelines, which encouraged us to “make starchy foods the basis of most meals”, are the direct cause of the obesity and diabetes pandemics that now threaten the financial sustainability of medical services globally. Excessive dietary carbohydrate, not fat, is the real nutrition villain.
The new book explains how the publication of The Real Meal Revolution in 2013 initiated a debate across all segments of the community and began to threaten diet orthodoxy. One solution was to silence the messenger — hence the health professions council hearing.
In the book, I provide the science to show that criticisms of my “Banting” diet are all without foundation. I answer all criticisms fully and transparently.
I also present the evidence that until very recently, perhaps as recently as 60 years ago, humans were much healthier than we are today. I show the key driver of our ill-health: the adoption of the high-carbohydrate diet by persons intolerant to carbohydrates — which turns out to be the majority of humans.
The book is about the distortion and corruption of science that has led to our current state of global ill-health. It provides clear scientific evidence of what we need to do to regain our formerly
healthy state.