"It is with great sadness that we announce the loss of Mary Enig, PhD.
Mary was a founding board member of the Weston A. Price Foundation and for several years a board member emeritus.
She was a driving force in the move to alert the public to the dangers of trans fatty acids, contributor to Nourishing Traditions, co-author of Eat Fat Lose Fat, author of Trans Fatty Acids in the Food Supply and Know Your Fats, and a frequent contributor to the Wise Traditions Know Your Fats column."
This announcement came from the Weston Price Foundation last week, and has saddened me. Mary was a mentor to me and under her supervision, I was able to obtain 50 continuing education credits to maintain my registration as a registered dietitian.
During the time I worked with her, one of the most profound things she said was: " I was present at the National Cholesterol Consensus Conference when they decided to make 200mg/dl the cutoff. The way they decided on 200 as the magic number was because they worried that if they made it 240 or 260, there wouldn't be enough people in the study and they wouldn't get their government funding."
So there you have it - you go to the doctor and get told your cholesterol is 201 and you need to be on a statin drug so you won't have a heart attack. All because of that magic number; profound...
It never made sense to me and it never made sense to Mary. I was so lucky to have found her book, Know Your Fats, which rocked my dietitian's world.
Mary had a PhD in lipid chemistry. She was brilliant and brave. It is because of Mary Enig that I practice nutrition the way that I do; NEVER recommending vegetable oils like corn, soy, canola, or cottonseed, and always encouraging God's fats: butter, coconut oil, olive oil, and other saturated or monounsaturated oils.
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