A change of heart, cholesterol may not be as bad as once thought

It’s the jolting headline that will make your taste buds jump for joy. Foods high in cholesterol may not be bad for your heart after all. After years of warning consumers to cut down on cholesterol, found in eggs, shellfish, butter and beef, the nutrition community has come full circle.

A new draft of a report from the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee contains a monumental shift in warnings first issued nearly four decades ago, suggesting that cholesterol no longer needs to be viewed as a “nutrient of concern.”

The announcement is viewed as vindication for Nina Teicholz, author of the 2014 best-selling book “The Big Fat Surprise: Why Butter, Meat, and Cheese Belong in a Healthy Diet.” Teicholz broke with conventional wisdom and angered many in the medical community by writing that through years of research, she concluded that not only was cholesterol wrongly linked to heart disease, but foods high in saturated fats, such as butter, eggs and beef, were also falsely labeled as heart unhealthy. The former vegetarian now practices what she preaches and has changed the way she and her family eat. Breakfast consists of eggs and bacon; cheese is a staple, as is lard. Gone are foods high in carbs and sugar. Teicholz invited Yahoo News into her kitchen just days before the stunning announcement from the nutrition advisory panel and predicted that more findings like these would be coming soon.