book review
PROTEINAHOLIC author: Garth Davis MD publisher: HarperOne 2015 ISBN: 978-0062279309 Price: £14.88
Review by Ursula Arens Writer; Nutrition & Dietetics
Ursula has spent most of her career in industry as a company nutritionist for a food retailer and a pharmaceutical company. She was also a nutrition scientist at the British Nutrition Foundation for seven years. Ursula guides the NHD features agenda as well as contributing features and reviews
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The pendulum of judgment about fiend nutrients (in excess) has been swinging from carbohydrates to fats and back. Until now, protein has enjoyed a virtuous halo. As the dangers of too much fat and/or too much carb have been so consistently communicated to the public, protein seemed the only dietary escape. But now Dr Davis has pulled in this nutrient for critical inspection and chastisement. Too much protein is not a good thing; it is bad. And many of the currently popular critiques of carbohydrates are muddled and misleading > come back potatoes (all is forgiven). By chance, I was behind a very wellmuscled young man in the shopping queue this morning. My basket held an uninspiring mix of groceries and a newspaper. Of course I could not restrain myself from a quick auditory glance at his basket: it held many packets of skinless chicken breasts, bags of biltong and dozens of eggs. My guess is that he was the title of this book being reviewed, or, in the description of Dr Davis, an adherent of ‘Bro-Science’. Dr Davis is a weight-loss surgeon, with a well-known health and weightloss clinic in Houston, Texas. This is not his first book: The Expert’s Guide to Weight-Loss Surgery was published in 2008 and is the most popular book on Amazon for patients considering this unfortunate choice. However, Dr Davis was uncomfortably exposed when a journalist phoned and asked him about his own health practices. “Oh, I run up and down stairs at the University,” was what he said. What he meant to say was, “I used to, occasionally walk some
NHDmag.com December 2015 /January 2016 - Issue 110
stairs at the University”. An immediate photo shoot was set up, leading the worst day of Dr Davis’s life. Squeezing into a tracksuit, he had to huff and puff at stair running for a photographer. Dr Davis was aware that he was overweight and unfit and he more than anyone in Houston should have known better. His subsequent medical check confirmed high blood pressure, elevated cholesterol and fatty liver. He was viewed as an expert on health and weight and felt like a hypocrite. One reason he researched and wrote the book Proteinaholic, is because of the success of his previous book in which he advocated a diet high in protein and fat and low-ish in carbohydrate. He felt that he had contributed to misleading his patients and, because he is such a close witness to the distress of obesity, he felt doubly responsible to conveying his insights that have led to his current excellent health and super fitness. Photographers and stair runs are now welcome. With the demonisation of fats and carbohydrates, Americans have been led to believe that protein is the answer. A survey by the Food Information Council reported that about 60% of Americans based all their meal choices around protein and that most were looking to consume ‘as much as possible’. Sales of protein bars and
