These days I am a firm “whole-food” advocate; and believe that everyone can benefit from eating in such a way that is low(er) in carbohydrate and higher in healthy fat than our current system guides.

Dr Caryn Zinn

A Damascus Moment

Zinn says she was “very loyal” to  mainstream low-fat, high-carb dietary  guidelines.

Schofield came across some old high-fat related research, five years ago, and asked her opinion.

She almost said. “Take your low-carb diet and go somewhere else. I am the dietitian and I know."

Instead, Zinn scrutinised the research. She was soon “flabbergasted” to realise that everything she had learned and thought she knew about diet and nutrition was wrong.

“The evidence that led to mainstream dietary guidelines was largely observational, correlation-based research,” Zinn said. “From a quality viewpoint, it did not compare to the solid, randomised controlled trials (RCTs) that were available to support low-carb, high-fat diets.”

Zinn in her practice worked with many who weren't able to maintain the weight loss. She began to realise that there was good reason: They were constantly hungry because they were eating too many carbohydrates and too little fat.

Part of that realisation involved understanding why carbohydrate really isn't an essential nutrient.

Zinn also realised that fears about low-carbohydrate and ketogenic diets, that worried her, were “just scare mongering”.

As a consequence, Zinn said: “I'm embarrassed to say that I used to teach my students that low-carbohydrate diets were bad because ketosis was bad.”

Zinn and co-author Grant Schofield, wrote a book called “What the Fat: Fat's IN: Sugar's OUT,” 2015

and a new one called “What the Fat: Sports Performance,” 2016

Auckland University of Technology
Public Health

Meet the team at the clinic

We’re a group of whole-food dietitians and nutritionists that are full of passion about what we do and practice what we preach. We aim to help our clients achieve their goals through providing a personalised and honest service. Because you come with your own unique set of demographics, genetic and metabolic traits, and diverse lifestyle situations, we believe that you deserve your own set of nutrition strategies that suits your (and your family’s) needs. We don’t believe in a one size fits all approach, but we do believe in basing your style of eating on whole, unprocessed, minimally packaged food as much as possible. Our consultations and advice reflect this personalised and whole-food approach. For more information about the team and details around our service, see the Caryn Zinn Nutrition website.

Current Research Projects:

Low Carb Kids: a weight loss feasibility study looking at whole food, LCHF eating for overweight children and their families.

A 12-week LCHF diet improves metabolic health outcomes over Usual Care, in a randomised control trial with overweight defence force personnel.

Neighbourhoods for active kids: The built environment and children’s body size: An investigation into the mediating effects of physical activity and nutritional behaviour.

Effects of high intensity intermittent exercise training on insulin sensitivity and metabolic control of pre-diabetic youth.

Exploring eating and physical activity profiles and patterns of New Zealanders.

Cost-effectiveness of consuming LCHF vs mainstream nutrition style.

Nutrient analysis of LCHF plans.

Development of LCHF resources for a low socio-economic population group with type 2 diabetes.

An investigation into the sugar content of baby foods (complementary feeding).

An investigation into the meaning of the term “whole foods.”

Dr Shawn Baker with Dr Caryn Zinn (8 minutes)

Published by: Dr. Shawn Baker Podcast | Revero - 11 June 2022