Good Calories, Bad Calories: Fats, Carbs, and the Controversial Science of Diet and Health (Vintage)
For decades we have been taught that fat is bad for us, carbohydrates better, and that the key to a healthy weight is eating less and exercising more. Yet despite this advice, we have seen unprecedented epidemics of obesity and diabetes. Taubes argues that the problem lies in refined carbohydrates, like white flour, easily digested starches, and sugars, and that the key to good health is the kind of calories we take in, not the number. In this groundbreaking book, award-winning science writer Gary Taubes shows us that almost everything we believe about the nature of a healthy diet is wrong.Product Details
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Taubes's eye-opening challenge to widely accepted ideas on nutrition and weight loss is as provocative as was his 2001 NewYork Times Magazine article, What if It's All a Big Fat Lie? Taubes (Bad Science), a writer for Science magazine, begins by showing how public health data has been misinterpreted to mark dietary fat and cholesterol as the primary causes of coronary heart disease. Deeper examination, he says, shows that heart disease and other diseases of civilization appear to result from increased consumption of refined carbohydrates: sugar, white flour and white rice. When researcher John Yudkin announced these results in the 1950s, however, he was drowned out by the conventional wisdom. Taubes cites clinical evidence showing that elevated triglyceride levels, rather than high total cholesterol, are associated with increased risk of heart disease-but measuring triglycerides is more difficult than measuring cholesterol. Taubes says that the current U.S. obesity epidemic actually consists of a very small increase in the average body mass index. Taube's arguments are lucid and well supported by lengthy notes and bibliography. His call for dietary advice that is based on rigorous science, not century-old preconceptions about the penalties of gluttony and sloth is bound to be echoed loudly by many readers. Illus. (Oct. 2)
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From The Washington Post
In 2002, science journalist Gary Taubes published an article entitled "What if It's All Been a Big Fat Lie?" He argued that reputable scientists were coming around to the idea, advanced by diet gurus like Dr. Robert Atkins, that carbohydrates, not fat, are the ultimate dietary villain. If so, he wrote, "the ongoing epidemic of obesity in America and elsewhere is not, as we are constantly told, due simply to a collective lack of will power and a failure to exercise. Rather it occurred . . . because the public health authorities told us unwittingly, but with the best of intentions, to eat precisely those foods that would make us fat, and we did."
The article helped revive the low-carb craze. Bread vanished from restaurant tables, and "dieters" began ordering steaks with a side of bacon. Many lost weight and became believers, but many did not, and the conventional wisdom on how to lose weight shifted only slightly.
In Good Calories, Bad Calories, Taubes tries to bury the idea that a low-fat diet promotes weight loss and better health. Obesity is caused, he argues, not by the quantity of calories you eat but by the quality. Carbohydrates, particularly refined ones like white bread and pasta, raise insulin levels, promoting the storage of fat.
Taubes is a relentless researcher, shining a light on flaws in the scientific literature. For example, he charges that when scientists figured out how to measure cholesterol in the blood, they became "fixated on the accumulation of cholesterol in the arteries as the cause of heart disease, despite considerable evidence to the contrary."
He also reveals how charismatic personalities can force the acceptance of unproven theories. For instance, nutritionist Jean Mayer persuaded Americans that exercise leads to weight loss when in fact, writes Taubes, exercising may increase hunger and calorie intake. According to a 2000 review of the medical literature, "some studies imply that physical activity might inhibit weight gain . . . some that it might accelerate weight gain; and some that it has no effect whatsoever." Yet the latest government dietary guidelines, released in 2005, recommend 60 to 90 minutes a day of moderately intense exercise and a low-calorie diet to achieve weight loss. Once again, Taubes shows, conventional wisdom wins out.
Good Calories, Bad Calories goes a long way toward breaking the link between obesity, gluttony and sloth by demonstrating that genes, hormones and chemistry play as much of a role in weight gain as behavior does. Taubes's tales of lame science and flawed laboratory tests are at times brilliant and enlightening. But they can also become repetitive and wearying. In the end, the most compelling case Taubes builds is one against stark dietary advice of any kind; nothing simple can capture the complex reasons for the epidemic rise in obesity. H.L. Mencken once said, "There is always an easy solution to every human problem -- neat, plausible, and wrong." Taubes cites this quote in his book; he, and all of us, would do well to remember it.
Copyright 2008, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.
From Booklist
Noted science journalist Taubes probes the state of what is currently known and what is simply conjectured about the relationship among nutrition, weight loss, health, and disease. What Taubes discovers is that much of what passes for irrefutable scientific knowledge is in fact supposition and that many reputable scientists doubt the validity of nutritional advice currently promoted by the government and public health industry. Beginning with the history of Ancel Keys' research into the relationship between elevated blood-cholesterol levels and coronary heart disease, Taubes demonstrates that a close reading of studies has shown that a low-cholesterol diet scarcely changes blood-cholesterol levels. Low-fat diets, moreover, apparently do little to lengthen life span. He does find encouragement in research tracking the positive effects of eliminating excessive refined carbohydrates and thus addressing pernicious diseases such as diabetes. Taubes' transparent prose brings drama, excitement, and tension to even the most abstruse and clinically reserved accounts of scientific research. He is careful to distinguish the oft-confused goals of weight loss and good health. Given America's current obsession with these issues, Taubes' challenge to current nutritional conventional wisdom will generate heated controversy and create popular demand for this deeply researched and equally deeply engaging treatise. Knoblauch, Mark
Customer Reviews
Not a diet book
I thought this was a diet book but it's not. It's a history of how the people who recommend what to eat came to their conclusions. The book is interesting and full of good information with 70 pages of sources cited. The book was a bit much for me. I could have gotten by with just an executive summary.
Up is down...black is white....that's what this book does for diets.
If you presume to know what's healthy, you watch your fat intake, calories....you eat salads and rarely touch a steak then you MUST read this book. It most definitely IS NOT a Diet Book. Its science, its facts, its the TRUTH and its amazing.
I started reading online articles by Taubes about 6 years ago and eagerly awaited this book. I changed the way I viewed nutrition and "healthy" foods based on those articles as well as many, many others by many, many authors (see Mary G. Enig and Sally Fallon), and I'll never by fooled into eating tofu or rice cakes again. And cholesterol meds! I'd have to be bound and gagged before I'd take them....even if my levels were sky high.
Every new so called "study" that shows up on the evening news makes me cringe. And I often get online, go directly to the source and read the study for myself. You'd be shocked at how much they leave out or twist on the evening news. Truthfully, I have to wonder if it's all been a mistake or quite on purpose seeing that health care in the USA is now the number one industry.
I've seen a lot of reviews that claim the book is difficult to read. Yes....it's big and there is a lot of science....but I'm one of the reviewers that found it hard to put down. I hate to admit it's the only book I've read in about 3 years.
Read this book.
Not for the shallow orthodox mind
I'll keep it simple. If you can't be swayed by science, or have no understanding of physiology this is not the book for you. It is hard science and some good lessons in cellular physiology. As a practicing Doctor of Chiropractic I already understood the basics of the science before I read this book. I wanted to see if he would "tow the party line" or relinquish and bow to the orthodoxy; NO TOWING HERE! Though he attempts to present an objective assessment of the data and the orthodox response (or non-response) to it, he slips his incredulity out of the box on the mindless dogmatic antithetical responses to the science that the medical profession so proudly professes to embrace... was that a run-on... except when it doesn't fit their world-view. I am very impressed with the thoroughness of Mr. Taubes' research. I am also very impressed with his simplified explanations of some very deep physiological science. Some of it I was surprised to see and some of it I was surprised he could uncover. I have seen studies expunged from the literature because it did not espouse the orthodox dogma related to cholesterol. In particular a Japanese study of 20,000 individuals followed for a period of 20 years that presented the cholesterol stats revealed by the author. Even though the book took me five days to read (it takes me seven days to read the Lord of the Rings Trilogy - 1500+ pages), I wouldn't consider it an easy book. I have a background in physiology, which made it easier for me. The uneducated reader may find it a daunting task to complete, if not totally boring. I would definitely recommend this for any health-care professional who is interested in the science of fat metabolism, anthropological-based nutrition, as well as diabetes and obesity. But, be advised: leave the dogma at home.
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