Product Description 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.
Your Mother Was Right And So Is TaubesOctober 8, 2007 rctnyc(NY, NY USA) 382 out of 397 found this review helpful
Gary Taubes reviews the medical research of the past 50 years to establish that the connections between fat and cholesterol and heart disease have never been proven and that, on the contrary, the case that unrefined carbohydrates are responsible for obesity and the so-called "diseases of civilization" has been made by the very studies that have been used to defend the "fat" hypothesis. His review of the research is exhaustive. He does not claim that exercise does not improve muscle tone and overall health. Rather, he argues that exercise is not a a "cure" for obesity, and may even make some people fatter, because they eat more of the wrong foods after exercising.
Taubes writes that the rule to follow is the same one that your mother taught you: starch and sweets make you fat. The solution is to center your diet around protein and non-starchy carbs such as green vegetables and berries, and not to worry about fat so much as unrefined flour, rice and other processed foods. (As one reviewer below points out, "bad" calories may include meat, fish and poultry that has been fed a diet of highly-processed grain. Buy grass-fed, and read labels: much of the canned and prepared food that you buy, including some yogurts, contains sugar and food additives made from corn (corn syrup, citric acid, etc.))
Anecdotally, after reading Taubes's 2002 article in the NYT, I realized that I had started gaining weight -- put on twelve pounds, and gone from a size 6 to an 8 or 10 -- precisely when I had changed my diet in the late 1970s to conform to the "new wisdom" regarding fats and carbohydrates. Exercise -- running and yoga -- had helped me to hold the line at 12 pounds, but could not take off the added weight. My husband, for whom I had assiduously prepared low-fat, high-carb meals for years, was 25 pounds overweight, despite daily exercise. Although I had tried The Zone, and lost weight, I was scared to switch permanently to what my doctor warned me was a dangerous diet. So I'd switched back to low fat/high carb, and back came the 12 pounds.
Then, last year, we began cooking with Julia Child's "Art of French Cooking" and, rather than getting fatter, I actually lost -- yes, lost -- weight eating all those butter-sauteed veggies and creamy quiches. When I once again became concerned about eating too much fat, and returned to a low-fat/high carb diet, back came the weight.
Finally, 8 weeks ago -- before reading Taube's book -- I decided that low carb (meaning low starch) had proven itself to me twice over, and that I was going to do what worked. So I ate protein (eggs, fish, chicken, dairy), organic greens and other low-starch veggies, and tossed the rice, bread, potatoes, and sugar. I didn't worry about the fat and cholesterol in eggs, swiss cheese, whole-milk yogurt or almonds; that fat kept me full, and I wasn't eating tons of such foods (who could?), just enough to feel satisfied.
I have lost 8 pounds since July. I feel great. I am not hungry. I no longer have the digestive problems that I used to describe as a "sensitive stomach." Moreover, having recently bullied my husband into giving up sugar, white rice, potatoes and all but multi-grain bread, I am certain that his weight will soon come down as well.
In short, my mother (who was not sick a day in her life until she died -- still trim -- at age ninety, and whose cooking kept my father alive until the same age) was right, and so is Gary. Listen to your stomach, watch your scale -- and read this book.
Great info, fascinating history, a new view on why we gain weight over timeOctober 20, 2007 Timothy D. Lundeen(San Francisco, CA USA) 380 out of 398 found this review helpful
This book is an impressive review of the science and the politics behind our ideas about good nutrition and healthy diets. Taubes took 5 years to write this, and says it wouldn't have been possible without the ready access to original resources that the Internet makes possible. It does indeed have an incredible amount of information about the subject.
One of the sad and infuriating themes of this book is that much of the currently accepted wisdom about healthy diets has a political basis, that recommendations were made and marketed before the science was solid, or in many cases before the science was even done. The people pushing their ideas strongly believed that they were doing the right thing, that their recommendations would save lives and wouldn't hurt anyone. Unfortunately, as the science gets better and better, it looks like they were wrong -- they may have helped a small percentage of people, but at the expense of greatly increased risk of diabetes, heart attacks, strokes, and cancer for large numbers of us.
Taubes opens his book by reminding us of the "diseases of Western civilization", that diabetes, high blood pressure, heart attacks, and cancer were relatively unknown in the third world until they adopted a more Western diet. Albert Schweitzer didn't treat many cases with these problems when he started practicing in Africa, but at the end of his service was seeing a lot of them, as local diets changed during his practice.
One hypothesis for why a typical Western diet is so unhealthy is that we eat a high level of refined carbohydrates: sugars, white flour, polished white rice. Taubes does an excellent job of supporting this hypothesis.
The basic model is that refined carbohydrates are absorbed very quickly by the gut and result in large blood sugar (glucose) spikes that require large insulin surges to keep blood sugar in a healthy range. Over time, many people develop metabolic problems and are not able to cope with these repeated glucose surges and keep their blood sugar under control. As average blood sugar and insulin level levels go up, they cause a cascade of increasing metabolic problems, leading to higher weight or obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, inflamation, and increased risk of heart attack, stroke, cancer, and dementia.
Taubes looks at a number of other explanations for "Western diseases".
* Cholesterol and saturated fat. This theory was championed by Dr Ancel Keys, who succeeding in turning it into dogma. The idea was that people with extremely high total cholesterol (265 and up) had higher risks of heart attacks, so lower cholesterol must be good for everyone, even though only a very small percentage of people have total cholesterol over 265. Eating saturated fat increases total cholesterol, so it must be bad. Eating polyunsaturated fat reduces total cholesterol so it must be good. Eating less saturated fat means that you need to make up the calories that were coming from it, so you needed to eat more polyunsaturated fat or reduce fat and eat more carbohydrate (e.g. a "low fat" diet).
The problem with Keys' theory is that further research did not support it: the epidemiological studies showed a modest risk of increased heart attack for men with total cholesterol over 240, and no increased risk for women. Low levels of cholesterol, under 160, are associated with increased risk of cancer, so you don't want to get too low. High levels of polyunsaturated fat are associated with increased risk of cancer, so you don't want to eat too much polyunsaturated fat.
Cholesterol is carried around in your blood in small globules of fat and cholesterol with a protein backbone, known as "lipoproteins". These globules range in size from very large (VLDL for very low-density lipoprotein) to medium sized (LDL for low-density lipoprotein) to small (HDL for high-density lipoprotein). When you get a blood test for total cholesterol, what is really measured is the cholesterol carried in all of these different sized globules.
It turns out that lipoprotein globule size is correlated with heart attack risk. Having more HDL is good (so your total cholesterol can go up and you have a lower risk of heart attack, if the increase comes from HDL). For LDL, there is a wide range of sizes, and the large ones are innocuous (e.g. "pillows floating around in your blood"). The smaller LDL particles are indeed correlated with an increased risk of heart attack. So if your total cholesterol goes up but it is because you have more large LDL globules, that is fine. If it goes up because you have more small LDL globlues, that is bad. But when you get a total cholesterol number, you have no way to tell which is which.
Eating saturated fat does increase total cholesterol, but it increases the large LDL particles, which appears to be harmless. Eating more carbohydrate increases the small LDL particles, which is likely dangerous. So saturated fat doesn't appear to increase risk of heart attack, but eating high carb diets might.
* Fiber. The theory that low fiber was the problem with Western diets was advanced by Dr Denis Burkitt, and held sway for quite a while. It was gradually disproved, and today the science is that fiber helps with constipation, but that's it.
* Overabundance and lack of willpower. This theory is that the various problems of a Western diet stem from an overabundance of good things, and our lack of willpower to resist them. As a result of our gluttony and overeating over time, we gradually put on weight, leading to the various Western health problems.
This theory is also called the "a calorie is a calorie is a calorie" theory of weight gain and resulting metabolic dysfunction.
Taubes makes an overwhelming case that weight problems are due to metabolic dysfunction, not the other way around. The obvious cases are people with diabetes type I, whose pancreas doesn't make insulin at all. These people cannot put on weight without insulin injections. On the other side of the spectrum, heavier people have higher-than-average insulin levels. People who eat diets that lower their average insulin levels lose weight without being hungry (e.g. low-glycemic index diets or extremly-low carb ketogenic diets such as Dr Atkins).
Also, eating high-carb diets makes you hungry, and makes you want to eat more, and makes it very hard to lose weight or stay at a lower weight. Eating a low-glycemic-index diet, you lose weight and are not hungry (where most people go wrong is to gradually add back in more refined carbs, which are literally addictive, increasing dopamine levels in the brain, and give you a craving for more and more once you eat any). It is also interesting that the only way to get normal rats to put on weight is to feed them more carbs, less fat and protein.
So, all in all, it looks like it is the highly refined sugars and carbs that cause us to gain weight.
The book has a lot of useful information about where the current science stands, and led to a lot of new threads for me, to try to figure out how to be healthier and feel better.
I did have some issues with it, however.
* Taubes doesn't discuss one of the major difference between Western and other diets, which is the level of omega-3 polyunsaturated fats. The Western diet is significantly deficient in omega-3s, with too much omega-6 fats. Research shows that DHA (an omega-3 fat) is a critical part of having insulin work as it should, so over time the typical Western DHA deficiency could be the mechanism that starts the cascade of damage from insulin resistance to higher average levels of insulin, higher average blood sugar, higher levels of damage with time, etc.
* There is recent research that shows extremely low carb (ketogenic) diets such as Dr Atkins increase methylglyoxal levels. Methylglyoxal is extremely reactive, and could cause much more rapid aging on a long-term ketogenic diet than on a glucose-based metabolism. So my take is that you shouldn't be in ketosis by choice.
* I think Taubes is too hard on some of the people involved in this story, and doesn't appreciate how hard it is to recognize bias at the time. From our vantage point, it is easy to point fingers. I think a lot of the people he talks about had reasonable, defensible perspectives at the time. Where I do think Taubes is right is when he protests that they shouldn't have been so sure that their recommendations would do no harm. Recommending major changes in everyone's diet is not something that should be done without stronger evidence!
* Taubes doesn't seem to appreciate some of the value of epidemiological studies, and overrates the value of controlled studies, which have their own risks and errors.
* I would have liked the history and the current science to be more clearly separated. As it is, you have to wade through a lot of history to get a clear picture of where we are today.
All in all, though, it is absolutely outstanding, fascinating and highly recommended!
Sorely needed because it finally puts low-fat vs. low-carb to rest.November 5, 2007 Tech Nut(Phoenix, AZ) 235 out of 245 found this review helpful
I'm a researcher by trade. Not a medical researcher, but an analyst nonetheless and I have been waiting for a very long time for this kind of work to come out. This isn't advocacy whatsoever. It's a look at what everyone says, and what the science says, and the politics that led us to ignore the science. The research level is staggering and evidence so overwhelming that portions of the book are downright infuriating.
I personally found reading the one-star reviews here interesting because there is not a single, negative review here that remotely suggests the reviewer actually read the material.
On to my own rating, here's what I think you should know when considering this purchase:
This is unlike any book you've ever read on the subject of diets. It is not a diet book. It is not a lifestyle book. It is not an advocacy book. It is a look at the science that has been ignored as our country has rolled toward the low-fat religion and what the consequences of this have been. It is a look at how and why overwhelming science and evidence was ignored.
Society has needed someone to do what Taubes did here -- to strip away what is popular, to dig into claims and recommendations, and see what the EVIDENCE shows us for claims on both sides of the diet argument. It will give you clarity where there has never been any, while explaining why it has been absent.
If you are looking for a book that lays out a diet plan and recipes and sample meals and such, this is not for you. This is a work of scientific journalism, not a diet plan.
On a final note, it is noteworthy that there have been no real rebuttals to this work whatsoever from the "experts" and "authorities" who have, because of politics and money and cowardice, advocated dietary guidelines that have driven our society into our miserable states of health and obesity.
That silence is shame.
The proof is in the puddingOctober 5, 2007 E. Fox(San Jose, CA USA) 178 out of 185 found this review helpful
Yes, this book is probably too academic for most citizens but it's worth the effort to try and understand a little more about endocrinology if you want to really be in control of your own health. Hormones rule.
If you are a skeptic or still can't let go of "calories in-calories out" and "fat and cholesterol clog arteries and cause heart attacks," do this. Eat a high carbohydrate diet (normal Western diet) for 6 weeks and get your triglycerides checked. Then eat no starch, no sugar, no potatoes, no pasta, no rice, no grains, no bread and no alcohol for 6 weeks. Get your triglycerides tested again. See the difference? There is no debate on EITHER side that triglycerides kill. The debate is how they get there. And by the way, eating that way is surprizingly satisfying and not nearly as hard as most people think it would be!
I have had the good fortune of working in a medical clinic where we test lipoproteins, insulin and many other metabolic markers on clients every 3 months. We recommend they avoid starchy and refined carboydrates but do eat many vegetables and protein. They do not use low-fat dairy but whole dairy. Saturated fat is not avoided. It takes a good 6 to 12 months but with this way of eating LDLIIIa+b (the intermediate lipoproteins that can be altered from VLDL to more dense and less lethal), insulin and yes even CHOLESTEROL will go down. It is not fat... it is carbohydrate that drives the metabolic engines to death.
What I love about Taubes' book is that he gives the history on why much of this scientific research has not been adopted by nutrition and health policy makers. It is not a 'great conspiracy' but human nature. Egos get involved and facts get distorted. If I hadn't seen hundreds of lipoprotein lab results I wouldn't have believed it either. If I hadn't heard the reports from clients that life without refined carbohydrates isn't really hard to do I wouldn't have believed it either. Taubes is on to something and you need to do your own experiements to test his assumption...
Taubes explains the science behind the metabolic discoveries from research about fat metabolism. He explains what happens when food meets hormones. And THAT is what the science of nutrition is really about! Hormones play a key role in metabolism and the manner in which food impacts hormones is what creates disease or health.
One area that Taubes did not elaborate on is the effect of feeding refined carbohydrates to the animals we eat. Fatty acids (the `omega' fatty acids) found in plants and animals, are converted to hormone-like substances, called eicosanoids or prostaglandins, by our body. These eicosanoids control many key metabolic functions including inflammation. It has been shown that inflammation is the root cause of most chronic degenerative diseases in humans. Eating animals that are fed grains rather than grass increases omega-6 fatty acid consumption and risk for chronic disease in humans.
There are two other insulin considerations to consider. If you eat omega-3 rich foods like walnuts, pumpkin seeds, wild caught fish and grass-fed animals, and your insulin is elevated, the insulin interferes with the conversion of omega-3 fatty acids to the eicosanoids that reduce inflammation in our body. Eating foods high in carbohydrates will increase inflammation and so increase risk for heart disease, autoimmune disease and further exacerbate diabetes. Also cortisol, the stress hormone, elevates insulin.
Being an omnivore has its own set of challenges. We can and DO eat anything. The metabolic pathways of nutrition and health are complex and inter-related. It is worth taking the time to understand them, especially how insulin works, so that when you do make a food choice you understand the impact to your health and well being. If you can't take the time or don't want to read Taubes' book, simply eat foods that come to you as nature intended; whole, real, micronutrient dense and carbohydrate sparse.
Do not let his remarks make you think that exercise is not important for your health just because it is not significantly important to weight loss. Your mitochondria are healthier when they undergo vigorous stress which is measured by heart rate. Mitochondria are organelles in your cells that are the power producers using food and oxygen to make energy. They are the fountain of youth and vitality. Exercise also keeps bones and muscles strong and keeps your endocrine (hormone) system healthy.
This is a great work and I will probably read it several times to absorb all of the science. It may not be an 'easy read' but it is vital information!
Amazing, whistle blowing bookOctober 27, 2007 CMCM(Nevada City, CA USA) 89 out of 90 found this review helpful
This book is without a doubt the most all inclusive, exhaustively researched book on dietary issues that exists. I read it front to back and am now re-reading it with my pink marker. You have to have a real interest in the subject to wade through all the information, it's not light reading. However, what is presented is mind blowing yet I had a sense of "I knew this all along." What really amazed AND disgusted me was the extent of sloppy and often bad science that has existed over the years with regard to weight gain, the influence of politics and media in misleading the public, often quite deliberately, other times just due to weak intellect. Taubes discusses it all, and the evidence is pretty plain. He footnotes everything, all the studies, the conferences, he names all the names. The back of the book has 44 pages of footnoted references, followed by a 66 page bibliography. Taubes is an impressive researcher, and as he said at one point, prior to the internet and its ability to facilitate research, this particular book would have been a lifetime of work to assemble.
Four years ago, suffering from a sprained shoulder and broken rib from a ski fall, and therefore unable to exercise for a time, I embarked on the Atkins diet to lose that proverbial last 20 lbs which seemingly would not budge despite fairly careful eating and a strenuous 6-day a week exercise regime. To my amazement, on the Atkins diet the weight fell off effortlessly and I felt marvelous. A few years later, I realized that I was both gluten and casein sensitive and the lack of grains, sugar, fruit and dairy in the Atkins induction diet explained why I felt so wonderful. It was obvious those omitted foods influenced whether I gained or lost weight. After reading this book, I now understand the full extent of why that weight came off so easily and quickly, how effortlessly I reached my ideal weight, and why I came to realize I hadn't known what it felt like to food GOOD all the time.
Looking back at my childhood in the 50's and 60's, this was a time in which not I, not my family, not anyone I knew, none of my schooolmates were at all overweight and you just didn't see very many hugely obese people anywhere. The grossly bloated and obsese people you see so commonly today were a total rarity at that time. The cause of so much of today's overweight is fairly obvious to pinpoint, and you have only to take a walk thru your local supermarket, pay attention to the products of the fast food restaurants (can you find anything that isn't fried/breaded/carb loaded??), and look at the typical diet everyone today tends to eat: grains grains grains at every meal, high carbs at every meal, loads of sugar and high fructose corn syrup (in virtually everything processed), and relatively less protein, very few vegetables (no, french fries don't count as a vegetable!), not much fat and not enough fruit. We are overloading ourselves with pure junk food from morning to night, most of it almost totally deficient in nutrients, but in other eras our typical diet was not like this.
Growing up my mom cooked meat, fairly minimal amounts of starch such as potatoes/rice, lots of veggies, fruits. We rarely had sodas (occasional treat only), desserts such as cakes or pies were infrequent, we didn't have snack foods such as chips, crackers, cookies in the house. We just didn't munch on junk between meals and if we needed a snack it would be an apple or some nuts. Breakfast cereals were relatively few and were generally corn flakes, Wheaties, Rice Krispies, etc., but again, they were consumed in very small amounts and not so full of sugar and chemicals. Think about the cereal aisle of today's market: dozens and dozens of cereals, a very high profit item by the way, most of them pure junk and chock full of sugar and chemicals. They are eaten for breakfast, they are snack foods. Kids stuff themselves with junky cereals. So making these observations on my own, I've always felt these differences in eating were marked from that era to what it is today, and I now see that idea was completely on track. While at age 58 I remember how I used to eat as a kid and teen, today's kids have never had the contrast and they think the foods we eat today are as it has always been. And they are nutritionally illiterate.
It's hard to go against the grain of "medical wisdom", but the fact is, as Taubes so aptly reveals, that with regard to obesity research, there has been no mainstream "medical wisdom" and the researchers who WERE on track were ignored or disregarded. Look at how maligned Atkins was! Taubes points out that scientific research was SUPPOSED to pose a hypothesis and then try to prove it false. Obesity research has been marked by posing a hypothesis and disregarding anything that was contrary, and collecting only the evidence that proved the hypothesis true. There has been a LOT of political influence.....if a scientist and his research is funded by General Mills, for example, it's not in his interest to report that certain products are unhealthy. This sort of thing has been done to a truly remarkable extent, and the impact has been devastating to our collective health. There has not been honesty of purpose in much of obesity research.
I suggest that everyone read this book....it's a substantial and involving read, and it probably needs to be read several times to truly digest it all, but it's fascinating all the way. It shows how we have been misled to be a nation of pill-takers for conditions that could largely be resolved by the proper DIET, and not with pills. (Think of the influence of pharmaceutical companies here: what would they do without the sales of diabetes meds, heartburn meds, cholesterol lowering meds, high blood pressure meds, the list goes on). The diseases of civilization....diabetes, heart disease, cancer and many others.....the link to your diet will crystal clear after reading this book, and the volume of evidence is undeniable. It's obvious that the wrong foods are hugely responsible for much, if not virtually ALL of the "diseases of civilization". It follows that the right diet could also eliminate these diseases over time. This is the amazing thing, the truth is actually quite obvious if people will get their heads out of the sand and look at it! Go into reading this book with an open mind, and you will see what you need to do. "Medical wisdom" is not the god you may have thought it was.
With regard to what you eat, most people tend to believe that if a food can be bought, it must be "OK." But that's just not true. There's a saying we should all remember: "Just because you CAN eat it, doesn't mean you SHOULD."
Taubes deserves a medal, some sort of major award, national scientific and medical recognition for his massive contribution to understanding and treating obesity with this book. Sadly, if things continue as they have in the last 50+ years, the book will be dismissed, maligned, and largely ignored by the scientific community AND with the press, who could, if they were so motivated, bring this information to the attention of the reading public.
CERTAIN CONTENT THAT APPEARS ON THIS SITE COMES FROM AMAZON SERVICES LLC. THIS CONTENT IS PROVIDED ‘AS IS’ AND IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE OR REMOVAL AT ANY TIME.
