Teo
Cover of I Was Told to Fear Eggs: the title in cream on dark forest green, above a large round tree, a pine and a nest of three eggs in the grass.

What's inside

  • Ten real flips, from eggs and margarine to coffee, the daily drink and eight glasses of water: who said it, when, and what changed
  • A chart of how long each piece of advice stood, and the paper, trial or ruling that moved it
  • The numbers from the trials shown as people per hundred or per thousand, not just percentages
  • The receipts: every study, report and ruling named, so you can read them yourself
  • A table of what the flips have in common, and the question each one teaches
  • The Next Flip: a cut-out card of ten questions for the fridge

Look inside

The flips at a glance: ten pieces of health advice drawn as green bars from the year each was given to a red leaf marking the year it changed, with a contents list below.Chapter page Carrots in a capsule: a then-and-now panel and a bar chart of lung cancers per 1,000 people per year in two trials, higher in the groups given beta-carotene.A cut-out card titled The Next Flip with ten numbered questions, such as Trial or observation? and Who paid, and did they say so?

Real pages from the file. Tap one to see it larger.

About it

I'm Teo. I'm ninety-six, and I'm old enough to have been told to fear eggs, then butter, then margarine, then fat. I've watched each piece of advice change its mind. This book is about how that happens, and what it teaches you about the headline in front of you today.

It walks through ten real flips: the three eggs a week of 1968, the hardened-oil swap that brought in trans fats, the Senate's 1977 fat target, a 1967 review the sugar trade paid for, beta-carotene and vitamin E pills, coffee's cancer label, the sick quitters behind the healthy-drinker curve, the missing sentence behind eight glasses of water, and the spinach decimal point nobody can find.

Each chapter shows what people were told and by whom, what changed and why, and the one question that would have caught it: was it a trial or an observation, compared to what, who paid, what was dropped from the quote. The receipts are on every page, so you can check me.

This is not "the experts are always wrong". Most advice moved because somebody ran a better study. That's science working, slowly. And it won't tell you what to eat, drink or take. Not once. I'm not your doctor, and nothing in it is medical advice.

You get a 17-page A4 PDF with charts, a table of what the flips have in common, and a cut-out card of ten questions for the day the advice changes again.

A page from it

The title is not a figure of speech. I’m old enough to have been told to fear eggs, then butter, then margarine, then fat, and old enough to have watched each piece of advice change its mind. These days my grandchildren ask whether eggs are good or bad this year. This book is my long answer.

Here is what this book is not. It is not “the experts are always wrong”. Most of the time the advice moved because somebody ran a better study. That is science working, slowly and in public. It is annoying. It is also the only thing that has ever worked.

Questions

What format is it, and can I print it?
It's a 17-page A4 PDF. It reads well on a tablet or laptop and prints at home in colour or black and white. On US Letter paper, choose "fit to page". The question card on page 16 is made to be cut out.
Who is it for?
Anyone who has watched health advice change and wondered who to believe next: curious readers, parents, carers, students and anyone who reads health headlines. No science background needed.
Is this medical or nutritional advice?
No. I'm not a doctor and I can't examine you. This is educational material about how advice is built and how to read the evidence behind it. Take questions about your own health to a doctor, nurse, dietitian or pharmacist.
Will it tell me what to eat?
No, not once. It tells you what people were told, what the evidence later showed, and which question would have caught it. What you eat is between you and someone who knows your history.
Are the sources real?
Yes. Every study, report and ruling in the book is real and published, and each chapter ends with a Receipts line (author, journal, year) so you can look them up. If you catch a mistake, tell me at @teoreads and it goes in my public Wrong Log.
Does it say the experts are always wrong?
No. Most advice changed because somebody ran a better study. The book shows what each piece of advice stood on, so you can judge the next one by its evidence, not by who is shouting.

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