Gary Taubes on full-fat, traditional foods over low-fat reformulations: recommends

Gary Taubes says dietary fat — including saturated fat and animal fats like butter, tallow, and lard — was wrongly demonized, and he favors full-fat, traditional foods over low-fat reformulations. He argues this case at length in Good Calories, Bad Calories and has continued it in his 2026 Substack writing, including the post “Bad Health Journalism, an addendum.”

His stated reasoning: he claims the idea that saturated fat causes heart disease was never rigorously established, and that decades of low-fat dietary advice rested on thin evidence. In a July 2025 Reason interview he said that on the tallow-versus-seed-oils question, “on this subject, I side with RFK Jr.” — aligning himself with the MAHA movement’s push back toward traditional animal fats. (Reason interview)

This page reports Taubes’s position as he states it; it is not medical or nutritional advice.

This page chronicles a stated position of the person above. It is not medical advice and not the site's own conclusion.