Herman Taller

Herman Taller (5 May 1906 - June 1984) was a doctor who promoted weight loss programs involving safflower oil.

Early life
Dr. Herman Taller was born in Russia to Russian parents according to the 1930 census, and was a native of Romania. He entered medical school in Pavia, Italy. Before WWII, he moved to Chile to practice in St. Vincent de Paul Hospital. Eventually, he took a residency in a Brooklyn hospital, opening an OB/GYN practice.

Career
Dr. Taller promoted a diet which added safflower oil to lose weight in his book Calories Don't Count, published in 1961 by Simon and Schuster (NY). This book had such chapter titles as "I eat Fat - and Grow Thin", "Why Low-Calorie Diets Don't Work", and "Why You Get Fat". The preface contains a comment regarding obesity that can be applied to modern times: "Until now there has been no agreement on how to treat this evil".

Writings
The book is a history of Dr. Taller's experience with obesity and discovering the use of safflower oil to lose the fat. He describes this as a new nutrition principle, and states that you can forget about calories and lose fat - not muscle or other vital substance.

Taller describes a "vacation test" in which he and another physician spent ten days together at a resort, eating exactly the same low fat foods. The food itself, salad, was made the same for both he and his friend in order to prove that he was not "cheating" on his diet. As a result of this test, his thin friend lost a pound or two and Taller gained 9 pounds.