Mary G. Enig

Mary Gertrude Enig, PhD is a nutritionist and early trans fat researcher known for her unconventional positions on the role fats play in diet and health.^[1] She has promoted skepticism towards the widely held view in the medical community^[2] that high saturated fat diets lead to heart disease, while she advocates for a diet based on whole foods and rich in certain saturated fats, such as those found in coconut oil and butter.^[3]

Academic and professional history

Enig attended the University of Maryland, College Park (UMCP), receiving an MS, and later a PhD in Nutritional Sciences in 1984.^[4] She was a faculty research associate at UMCP with the Lipids Research Group in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry from 1984 through 1991. While in graduate school and later as a research associate, Enig participated in biochemical research on lipids. She has published scientific papers on food fats and oils and is a former editor of the Journal of the American College of Nutrition.^[5][6]

Enig is a Master of the American College of Nutrition.^[7][8] She was a Licensed Nutritionist in Maryland from May 1988 to October 2008.^[9]

Enig is the co-founder, vice president, and board-member of the Weston A. Price Foundation (WAPF), started in 1999 to promote nutrition and health advice based on the work of early 20th century dentist and researcher Weston A. Price.^[10]

Dietary views

Enig was an early researcher of trans fatty acids,^[6] warning of their dangers before they were widely accepted.^[11][12] Enig believes that trans-fats lower the beneficial type of cholesterol (HDL)^[12] and pushed for improved labeling of trans fats on products,^[13] which has now become mandatory on products in the U.S. and in Europe.

Enig disputes the widely accepted view in the medical community that consumption of saturated fats contributes to heart disease.^[3][14] Her chapter in the book Coronary Heart Disease: The Dietary Sense and Nonsense – An evaluation by scientists, was reviewed in the New England Journal of Medicine, which noted that while she provided an appropriate discussion of trans fats in diet, she did not accurately depict the medical literature on the connection between diet and coronary disease, and that she wrote with an inflammatory tone that was unjustified.^[15] Enig responded to the review in a letter published in the journal.^[16]

Enig believes both butter and coconut oil are not eaten enough and are good for heart health. Enig has conducted and published research into the properties of coconut oil, and she is a vocal advocate for its consumption,^[12][17] going against the standard view in the medical community that due to coconut oil's high saturated fat content, its use should be minimized or avoided. Citing the work of Jon J. Kabara, Enig says that lauric acid has antimicrobial properties,^[18][19] and that unprocessed coconut oil could be effective in the treatment of viral infections, including HIV/AIDS.^[20][21]

Some of Enig's work has been inspired by the research of Weston A. Price, a dentist who traveled the world researching traditional diets in the 1920s and '30s. Sally Fallon, an advocate for the nutritional theories of Price, recruited Enig to utilize her nutritional training to co-write a book to popularize Price's work in 1989 called Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook That Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats. It explained Price's findings and provided recipes of traditional foods such as chicken liver pâté, sauerkraut, sourdough breads and bone broths,^[22] as well as raw milk, kombucha, probiotics (yogurt, kim-chee), trans-fat avoidance, organ meats, coconut oil, and butter and has sold more than 400,000 copies as of 2011.^[23]

Enig co-wrote another book with Sally Fallon called Eat Fat, Lose Fat which promotes what Enig considers "good" fats, including coconut, butter, cream, nuts, meat, lard, goose fat, and eggs. In the book, Enig criticizes the use of polyunsaturated oils which most diets recommend, because of the way they are processed and also argues that many who follow low-fat diets feel low on energy because they are "fat deficient".^[24]

References