Dr. Mary G. Enig, PhD, a founding board member of the Weston A. Price Foundation, died yesterday at the age of 83. She was my friend and mentor, and I want to celebrate her life today by talking about her pioneering research, and the profound impact it has had on the fields of nutrition and health.
Early in her career, Mary challenged the widely held assumption that saturated fats and cholesterol cause heart disease and cancer. She established the connection between margarine and other hydrogenated fats and the development of heart disease, cancer and other ills. Furthermore, she found cogent evidence that trans fatty acids contribute to such diseases by foiling the liver’s oxidase enzyme system so that it cannot properly metabolize drugs and pollutants. By researching and publishing data on the trans fatty acid composition of more than 500 commonly eaten foods, Mary gave nutritionists and their clients a useful tool for knowing what foods to eliminate from their diets. This is vital information for anyone who desires optimum health and longevity. All of us who are eating butter today instead of margarine, should be grateful for the research — and bravery — of Dr. Mary G. Enig.
Mary furthermore pioneered research on coconut oil, a much maligned and misunderstood saturated fat that was vilified for years by establishment “health experts.” Thanks to Mary, it’s now widely known that coconut oil promotes optimum health. Coconut oil is rich in lauric acid, a health-promoting fatty acid with anti-microbial properties that has been proving its mettle in trials with AIDS patients and others suffering from compromised immune systems. Mary’s theories about “conditionally essential” saturated fats are already proving to be one of the missing links to the development of effective anti-aging therapies.
Mary inspired me every day with her courage and integrity. Over the years, she was consistently ahead of mainstream scientists and nutritionists, pushing their envelopes, thinking outside the box, and threatening the status quo. Not surprisingly, she was subjected to a great deal of criticism, not to mention bullying from powerful food industry interests. Mary not only refused to kowtow to these pressures but boldly moved on to new and equally controversial causes, even as the world of health science caught up with, and belatedly recognized, her earlier findings.
Mary’s commitment to education led her to teach classes and workshops for college students and professionals. Even more importantly, she became active with the Price-Pottenger Nutrition Foundation of San Diego, CA, and then served as a founding board member and Vice President of the Weston A. Price Foundation in Washington, DC. I was deeply honored to succeed Mary as Vice President of WAPF when she retired to emeritus status in 2011. Our 15th annual Wise Traditions Conference (to be held November 7-10, 2014) will be dedicated to her memory.
By teaming up with Sally Fallon Morell, founding president of WAPF, Mary found a highly effective way to fight the diet dictocrats and ensure that her work would reach the public far sooner than the narrow and often entrenched world of academia would ever allow. Their book Nourishing Traditions, first published in 1995, plus dozens of articles and Letters to the Editor written for Wise Traditions, Nexus, the Townsend Letter and other magazines and newspapers had an impact on tens of thousands of men, women and children. The work of the “brazen duo”— as they were often called —invariably incited controversy, but helped people think for themselves regarding such issues as fat in the diet, the deficiencies of vegetarian diets, the dangers of commercial infant formulas and other important diet and health topics.
Finally, Sally and Mary helped blow the whistle on the food-industry sponsored myth of soy being the miracle food for the millennium. Their articles pulled no punches and drove me to begin research on the dangers of soy, a project that led, in turn, to my enrolling in a PhD program in nutritional sciences at the Union Institute and University in Cincinnati. My 2004 Union dissertation became the 2005 book The Whole Soy Story: The Dark Side of America’s Favorite Heath Food. Mary graciously served on my doctoral committee at Union, and generously shared her expertise on fats and oils and their myriad roles in health and longevity. She held me to high standards of academic excellence, took genuine pleasure in my successes and encouraged me to thank her by paying it forward. I am deeply blessed to have known this remarkable woman and role model.
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Mary Enig is one who should have received the Nobel Peace Prize. This woman is truly amazing and her contributions to the human race need to be applauded! Those shoes will forever be empty with her passing.
Those were very kind & appropriate words for a very special woman. My Aunt Mary taught me so much about eating healthy and taking vitamins 40 years ago. All of what she said is being discussed today. Better late than never. I hope everyone benefits from her tireless efforts to educate the public.
This is great!
Thank you Kaayla, Dana and Steven!
According to the wikipedia the cause of her death was a stroke, how come? she taught about cholesterol which can protect the human against heart attack,stroke and cancer.
Kristian, I have failed to locate an article from many years ago inwhich several board members, including Dr. Enig, kept track of a day’s food intake (perhaps a week?). What I saw struck me as a little disappointing in that what our beloved Mary had eaten in that length of time did not reflect a lot of the WAP principles, including much fermented food or properly prepared grains. In fact, she also consumed several things, including coffee, which is recommended against. And so while yes, she taught about eating saturated and monosaturated fats, she also seemed to eat differently than most of us would suggest particularly healthful. She also had suffered from cancer and underwent conventional treatment, although I am unaware of any specifics and perhaps she did seek alternative treatment as well. In light of these things, we can understand why Dr. Mary Enig may have succumbed to a stroke. And it leaves us all the more disappointed. She was, however, a warm, wonderful, humble and sincer woman whom I am thankful to have been acquainted!
I followed WAPF diet to a T and never felt well. Digestive problems never improved until I removed high oxalate vegetables and fruits. Most recently I stopped eating all plant foods and am finally healing a very damaged alimentary track. I’m 60 years old and reversing disease and aging.
Ancel Keys had several strokes. If you eat vegan for an ethical stance that’s understanding, but don’t do it for health reasons! Eating vegtable oils, wheat, and processed soy meat along with sugar is going to shorten your life. I googled palo activist, LCHF activist and a vary of ways of meat eaters and all I got were vegan websites telling me I’m going to have a heart attack but no names of activist whom have passed! But did the same for vegan activist and I got, Jay Dinshah died at the age 63( founder of the American vegan society), Michael Clark Duncan (actor)died at the age of 54 and Peter Berg (PETA activist) all vegan/vegetarian and they all had died from heart attacks. Also Ceser Chavez died from natural causes at the age of 63 also vegan
The vegan sites are taking over google! I only got one saying a vegan died of a heart attack and that was Dick Gregory. The rest showed articles of meat eaters switching to vegan after a heart attack.
Seriously though, the vegan sites dominate google and youtube for many keywords.
Er Ancel Keys lived to over 100 and regularly ate liver and meat so he didn’t so so badly considering.
I am Mary Enig’s granddaughter. Yes, she passed from a stroke. However it was not one caused by lack of healthy nutrition and the like. She had broken her leg, and was in a rehab for that. She then fell and broke her hip. Due to immobility, a blood clot formed and she tragically had a stroke. She was lucid and otherwise healthy, no issues other than having had a hip replacement. I google searched something pertaining to her research, and saw this article (among others). Very heartwarming to see everyone speak so highly of her. She was definitely an outstanding woman, and her passing was a great loss. Figured I would answer your inquiry, even though it has been years since the post was made.
Wow saw awesome you replied, Thank You. I too just came across this entry find it very interesting. Am glad your did clarify some of what her conditions were, but my questions would still be why did she have bone issues and someone said she had cancer as well. Would you care to comment. Not here to criticize just trying to understand the whole picture of things. I always seek knowledge whether I agree with certain things or not. Thank you
Katie,
Thank you so much for sharing this clarifying information.
I’m endlessly grateful to your grandmother for her pioneering research in lipid science.
Hello Katie in regard to Weston Price foundation I will be 79 next month and I remember buying my first Bucket of Coconut Oil at the age of 42 since then after, I have been the same weight for 37 years mixed along later with the Dr.Hay Diet. Your Grandmother was the basic foundation of my early healthy eating habits and my Blood pressure today of 120 / 80 along with my “ Animal way Exercise Program” just recently started by me , Your Grandmother was inspirational to my good health today and Mary Eng has been indelibly mal-imprinted in last 37 years, within my mind, along with the name Weston Price and my continued Website mentioned below.
Thank you so much for that, I was a bit shaken by the fact that she had a stroke. I’m sorry for your loss.
Dr Mary Enig, Thanks from the bottom of my heart for swimming against the tide and doing the good work. I salute your spirit. May God bless your soul.
according to wikipedia the cause of her death was a stroke? how come she taught about eating saturated fats can protect you against heart attack,stroke and cancer.
Several things can induce a stroke, such as cortisol deregulation, inactivity, chronic stress, continually bad sleep, etc. Also the older you get the more susceptible you become. Just because some did A (diet) right, doesn’t guarantee them protection from disease related death. Especially when they didn’t do B (exercise), C (sleep), and D (stress) right.
I am saddened to hear of the passing of this pioneering woman who bravely challenged the status quo wrt fats and nutrition. I came upon her work in a back issue of Gourmet Magazine. I read with great interest about her research into trans fats and the dark side of the industrial food complex. I have thought about that article for years, wanting to share it with friends. Alas, I could not recall her name or the issue. Today, as I picked up a stack of Gourmet’s from storage, all from June, the 2004 issue happened to be on top. Imagine my delight and surprise as I opened the cover to find the index with the page # for the article I had read so many years ago. I have always believed that food sourced from nature, and not created in a lab, was what I should be putting in my body and never, even in college (mid 1970’s) would I eat anything but real butter and used olive oil. Reading about her work in the magazine validated my instinct and made me all the more determined to eat ‘whole’ as much as possible. What a serendipitous happening today finding that long sought after issue! I offer a long overdue thank you to the memory of Dr. Enig. Thank you for your body of work and your contribution to the health of well being of the many many lives you touched.
Most people don’t live to the age of 83. Had she reached age 85 she would have of 50% chance of developing Alzheimer’s Disease. I want to die prior to having Alzheimer’s Disease.
What are the names of the institutions managers and campus directors who pulled the funding on her department and restricted and stiffled her research, pushing her out of the department and shoving her into a corner? Who was the individuals who decided that her research was not appropriate for the Institution? What were their titles and how did they get to decide what she should be researching on the campus and with faculty resources? What was happening that year in research and politics?
I know this comment is late. However I am thankful to God for her research, and am very angry at the medical mobocracy pushing statins. They are destroying my father’s brain, and many others. She died of a stroke related to blood, and I am sorry she went through that (nattokinase purchased in bulk from Taiwan helped my mother after her own BLOOD CLOT RELATED stroke).
It is a foolish, insensitive, non sequitur for anyone to question the SCIENCE of lipids that Mrs. Enig helped show, and give into the false science of those who push statins on millions, and hurt them, because of how she died. They also add insult to injury, by virtue signaling as if we should worship them as witch doctors.
How Grateful I am to have come across “Nourishing Traditions” by Sally Fallon with Mary G. Enid all those years ago – 1998? 1999? at a tiny little Farmers Market in Brisbane, Australia. Here was this very unassuming man a Farmer who made “whole” butter as I recalled he told me, but what caught my eye where these stacks & stacks of new books!!
“NOURISHING TRADITIONS” and as this older man proceeded to tell me about his health journey & how he came across Sally Fallon & Mary Enig, to the point of travelling to the States to get help from Sally Fallon. This man was clearly very emotional about how “NOURISHING TRADITIONS” had changed his life – though he already knew & felt that animal fats were good for his nutrition being a dairy farmer, though he had society telling him differently.
And so yes I did buy a copy of “NOURISHING TRADITIONS” and I devoured every page & changed my nutritional life – though many people I knew – thought I was completely Mad! Though I could feel the difference in my own wellbeing as my diet changed & I got rid of wheat based products, pulses, all sugars & went back to eating red meat, healthy animal fats, leafy green vegetables & fermented foods …
Yesterday I received my 5th treasured copy of “NOURISHING TRADITIONS” & I also ordered “NOURISHING FATS” & upon opening “NOURISHING FATS” and read “To the memory of Mary G. Enig.PhD” I thought I wonder who Mary was?? Which lead me here …
I wish for the decendants to know how thankful I am for Mary being such a wonderful Pioneer and Trail Blazer that she was, although I can imagine it would have been terribly hard coming up against the “Big Corporations” the “Pharmaciticals” and the such!!! Well done to her for sticking to her guns … and by the way the other copies that I treasured I gave away to people that I came across in life who where in need of Sally’s “NOURISHING TRADITIONS” for their own healing and well-being & I’m sure they have treasured those copies too & I’d like to think have passed on copies to others who were in need.
Thank you to Mary & to Sally too.