A wonderful way to learn the why and how of a 'low carb' diet This provocative and hugely challenging story is set in Austria and the North of England. It is based on the teaching of Dr Wolfgang Lutz who spent half his life using low carbohydrate nutrition for healing purposes; it became the cornerstone of much of the treatment he used with a wide range of ailments. Uncle Wolf's Secret is written as fiction to allow more fun to be added to this serious and controversial topic. Yet the journey of discovery that his 'niece, ' Sparrow (a term of affection in German) makes is as real as can be. For she attempts to uncover the secret of how her 'uncle' got so many people well again. The more she learns, the more questions arise. Just think of the trepidation she feels as she puts to herself "the most daunting question of all: what if Uncle Wolfi was right? Right in his view of evolutionary history, right about our ancient diet being mainly of animal food, right about being tuned to frugality and periods of want, right about the link between what we ate and the inner workings of our bodies, right about us not exactly being designed for stacks of cake and biscuits - oh, Heaven forbid " Uncle Wolfi's Secret hits the current antipathy to meat and fat head on. When Sparrow admits she is worried by the fact that "it is precisely those things which have been central to our original diet as humans that our teachers say are bad for us. They are going to be given red traffic lights " her Uncle Wolfi counsels her to "Store inwardly the question: how could foodstuffs which had been an integral part of the human diet for more than a 100,000 years suddenly become bad for us?" "Always remember we come out of what has gone before." Yes, this story offers a broad vision against which to set modern confusion about what to eat, but it does much more than that. It also fills in some of the relevant biology, Sparrow learns how to overcome her own health problems and the story suggests that there exists a practical and not unappetising way forward - a way in which suet pudding, pork pie and thin crust pizza do not feature on any no-no list. A most enjoyable and thought-provoking read