Funny, I just listened to this part last night, and the "olive oil is relatively recent (17th century)" bit really surprised me too! Enough so that I discussed it with my history-buff husband who not only was surprised, was incredulous, started also telling me how the Romans paid their soldiers in olive oil, etc.

It made me want to further investigate this assertion of hers for sure.

I'm pretty well-read in the low carb/paleo world - I've read both Taubes books, Volek/Phinney, Davis, Perlmutter, Sisson, etc - I'd say this book is more in the investigative style of Taubes, a bit of history weaving like Minger, but still has new angles and details.

I'm now at the point where she's going through trans fat (for sure she's negative on them, don't worry!) and you can see the artful weaving of the sugar/carbs thing starting to come at you. I'm not sure how many "regular" diet people would read a book like this, but the way she's leading up to the carb sucker-punch is more artful than Taubes (I'm a big fan of his, but I like things up-front and direct, probably more than the average person does). She's constructed the carb/sugar explanation a little like a butler in a mystery novel, that you suspect is going to play a larger role towards the end, and now in the middle of act 2 you're starting to see him popping up a little too much for him to just disappear into the book...

Anyone with info on the olive oil history thing I'd love to see details/links. I might need to download the chapter references, since I'm in the audio version...