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Good Calories, Bad Calories Kindle Edition

4.5 out of 5 stars 2,261 ratings
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This groundbreaking book by award-winning science writer and bestselling author of Why We Get Fat and The Case for Keto shows us that almost everything we believe about the nature of a healthy diet is wrong.

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.

Called “a very important book,” by Andrew Weil and ”destined to change the way we think about food,” by Michael Pollan, this groundbreaking book by award-winning science writer Gary Taubes shows us that almost everything we believe about the nature of a healthy diet is wrong.

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)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. 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

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B000UZNSC2
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Anchor
  • Accessibility ‏ : ‎ Learn more
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ September 25, 2007
  • Edition ‏ : ‎ 1st
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 2.8 MB
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 1027 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9780307267948
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0307267948
  • Page Flip ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.5 out of 5 stars 2,261 ratings

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Gary Taubes
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Gary Taubes is an investigative science and health journalist and co-founder of the non-profit Nutrition Science Initiative (NuSI.org). He is the author of Why We Get Fat and What to Do About It and Good Calories, Bad Calories (The Diet Delusion in the UK). Taubes is the recipient of a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Investigator Award in Health Policy Research, and has won numerous other awards for his journalism. These include the International Health Reporting Award from the Pan American Health Organization and the National Association of Science Writers Science in Society Journalism Award, which he won in 1996, 1999 and 2001. (He is the first print journalist to win this award three times.) Taubes graduated from Harvard College in 1977 with an S.B. degree in applied physics, and received an M.S. degree in engineering from Stanford University (1978) and in journalism from Columbia University (1981).

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4.5 out of 5 stars
2,261 global ratings

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Customers say

Customers find the book brilliantly researched and densely packed with technical scientific information, describing it as a magnificent opus that exhaustively covers obesity and low-carb eating. Moreover, they report feeling more energetic and experiencing reduced body aches after following its dietary advice. However, the book's length and density receive mixed reactions, with some finding it very long and dense, while others wish it was shorter. Additionally, the rigor receives mixed feedback, with one customer noting it's heavy on facts and details, while another finds it meandering.

567 customers mention "Information quality"467 positive100 negative

Customers praise the book's quality, noting it is brilliantly researched and densely packed with technical scientific information, with the author exhaustively quoting research throughout.

"...thing courageous enough to "question authority" to this degree, detailed enough to provide a jumping-off point for legitimate medical people to re-..." Read more

"...This is a book that is very well researches. There is a lot more that you can learn by reading it...." Read more

"...Taubes' book is a very interesting and important contribution to the literature, but it is merely a step along our journey to understanding obesity..." Read more

"...Taubes book has over 60 pages of just reference sources. It is exhaustively researched, going back through dietary research for the past century...." Read more

450 customers mention "Readability"341 positive109 negative

Customers find the book highly readable, describing it as a magnificent opus that is well worth the effort to read.

"...people to re-evaluate some old ideas on their own, and yet readable enough to provide an entry gateway to at least a small portion of the layman..." Read more

"...All in all, though, it is absolutely outstanding, fascinating and highly recommended!" Read more

"...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..." Read more

"...Pollan's book and enjoy it immensely, mainly due to his conversational writing style, but it was Good Calories Bad Calories that really set me into..." Read more

166 customers mention "Calorie count"145 positive21 negative

Customers appreciate the calorie count information in the book, particularly noting that a high-fat diet is beneficial for health and helps reduce hunger.

"...Actually, I felt better than fine, to my great surprise. My energy level was high and I didn't feel hungry at all...." Read more

"...This will help you feel full longer and reduce your cravings that come with sudden sugar highs and lows that come from eating refined carbs and..." Read more

"...it is a review of the science and history behind high-carb vs. low-carb diets...." Read more

"...check up, but I can report that my body aches have lessened, I have more energy, my short-term memory is better and my depressed mood has..." Read more

35 customers mention "Cholesterol level"32 positive3 negative

Customers report positive effects on cholesterol levels, feeling more energetic and experiencing reduced body aches.

"...This will help you feel full longer and reduce your cravings that come with sudden sugar highs and lows that come from eating refined carbs and..." Read more

"...months until my next check up, but I can report that my body aches have lessened, I have more energy, my short-term memory is better and my..." Read more

"...on the Atkins diet the weight fell off effortlessly and I felt marvelous...." Read more

"...I'm now normal weight for my height, and I always feel nimble and energetic compared to how I used to feel before reading this book...." Read more

23 customers mention "Sturdiness"23 positive0 negative

Customers appreciate the book's sturdiness, describing it as well put together, substantial, and in good condition.

"...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..." Read more

"...Amazing cohesiveness with the incredible amount of information Taubes had to juggle to put this book together *..." Read more

"...a light read, the book exhaustively quotes research, and meticulously builds its case for calling into question the validity of conventional dietary..." Read more

"This is by far the most well put together, non biased, thoughtful, coherent book on nutrition I have ever read...." Read more

29 customers mention "Length"15 positive14 negative

Customers have mixed opinions about the book's length, with some finding it very long and noting its extensive bibliography, while others wish it was shorter.

"...But the good thing about this book is that there are about 150 pages of references - when you see something you want to know more about, look at the..." Read more

"...and contains crucially important information, but it's a hard read - long, dense, meandering, and repetitive...." Read more

"...The book is 601 pages and this includes 140 pages of notes, bibliography, and index. Do you want a history book of dieting?..." Read more

"...Some will find this book overly long and exhaustingly exhaustive; I found it compelling...." Read more

27 customers mention "Density"10 positive17 negative

Customers find the book dense.

"...contains crucially important information, but it's a hard read - long, dense, meandering, and repetitive...." Read more

"...and worth the not inconsiderable time and effort that such a large, dense, and closely documented work demands...." Read more

"...were a bit painful and it took a while to read the whole book, its very dense...." Read more

"...As others have said this is a dense and challenging read. It's not for everyone, but it was absolutely for me...." Read more

12 customers mention "Rigor"4 positive8 negative

Customers have mixed reactions to the book's rigor, with some finding it heavy on facts and details, while others describe it as meandering.

"...crucially important information, but it's a hard read - long, dense, meandering, and repetitive...." Read more

"...' book, simply eat foods that come to you as nature intended; whole, real, micronutrient dense and carbohydrate sparse...." Read more

"...Frankly, I recommend the book, notwithstanding the rather disturbing conclusions which really gives one pause." Read more

"...Do not test fundamental assumptions, do not allow for alternative hypothesis to be researched, use political and media tactics to attack even..." Read more

modern classic
5 out of 5 stars
modern classic
A modern classic, this book is used as a textbook in some universities, yet once you get used to some of the terminology it's easy for a layman such as myself to read. Taubes intended this book to be read for academics and his other, Why We Get Fat for people like me but I think most people who'd be interested to learn about the history and current state of nutrition research/preventive medicine should stick to this book as Taubes chapters and digressions on the diseases of civilization, mental health, aging, cancer, diabetes, salt, etc. are worth it. Best chapters are prologue, 1, 5, 13, 23, epilogue One thing Taubes was legitimately criticized about was pointing out how exercising to lose weight has no effect/no long term effect on weight loss once the body adapts, but he didn't point out the other, actual benefits of exercise. This is a little nitpicky, and as a semi-gym rat myself I think anyone who'd stop exercising after learning this just wasn't really that into exercising anyways, but some people got pissed at this. Taubes also left out a whole chapter on Gout which can be found searching on the internet... People till curious should also get Nick Lane's Sex Power Suicide, Mark Sisson's Primal Blueprint 21-day book, Weston Price's free book, Nutrition & Physical Degeneration, and finally checkout all the blogs dedicated to the paleo lifestyle. Pictured below: The Notes and Bibliography section of this book is extensive, as you can see by the sheer number of pages these sections take up.
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Top reviews from the United States

  • Reviewed in the United States on September 15, 2009
    Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
    This review was originally posted in the Normal Eating newsletter and blog:

    [...]

    TAUBES' BOOK AND THE REAL CAUSE OF OBESITY

    I just finished reading Gary Taubes' book, Good Calories, Bad Calories. It's superbly researched and contains crucially important information, but it's a hard read - long, dense, meandering, and repetitive. I fear that many people won't get all the way through it. And while the extensive detail on studies is great, the forest gets a bit lost among all the trees. So here is a summary of the book's main findings, which start with this revolutionary notion:

    Overeating is not the cause of obesity, but rather its consequence - a form of body wisdom caused by dietary fuel being abnormally locked away as fat. The cells of your body don't have enough usable energy, so you eat more and move less. Sound crazy? There's actually voluminous research to support this theory.

    A Heart-Healthy Diet is High Fat

    The book starts with a thorough debunking of the idea that saturated fat and cholesterol cause heart disease. I'm not going to repeat all the evidence here (read the book for that), but there is no question that the dietary cause of atherosclerosis is excessive dietary carbohydrate, not excessive saturated fat. In fact, eating saturated fat is protective of your heart.

    Study after study shows this is true. But unfortunately, before the evidence became so clear, the government and medical establishment made some premature pronouncements about low-fat diets being good for your heart, and now they can't find a face-saving way to back off from it.

    In addition to the experimental evidence, there is the cultural evidence. The chapter on "Diseases of Civilization" gives example after example of hunter-gatherer cultures that never experienced heart disease, diabetes, obesity, cancer, or the rest of the diseases that plague our society - until they started eating the Western diet dominated by white flour, white sugar, and white rice.

    Human breast milk is very high in cholesterol. We evolved as hunter-gatherers eating a high-fat diet composed chiefly of red meat. How in the world could this be bad for us? The new food in our diet - processed and excessive carbohydrate - is the obvious cause of the new diseases. There is a wonderful quote about this from Peter Cleave's testimony before George McGovern's Senate Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs:

    I don't hold the cholesterol view for a moment. For a modern disease to be related to an old-fashioned food is one of the most ludicrous things I have ever heard in my life. If anybody tells me that eating fat was the cause of coronary disease, I should look at them in amazement. But, when it comes to the dreadful sweet things that are served up ... that is a very different proposition.

    Low-Fat Diets Make You Fat

    The gigantic mistake that the government and medical establishment made in advising a low-fat diet also affected the advice to people struggling with obesity and diabetes. Doctors who recommended a high-fat, low-carb diet for weight loss risked censure because of the widespread - and erroneous - notion that this was bad for the heart.

    All obesity research results were interpreted - sometimes tortuously - to be compatible with the idea that carbs are good for you. And one entire area of evidence - the biology of fat metabolism - was completely ignored, because there was no way to reconcile this with the bad advice to eat lots of carbs.

    When you eat carbohydrates - particularly processed carbohydrates like white flour, white rice, or sugar - your body secretes insulin to remove the sugar from your blood. Insulin is the hormone necessary to store fat into your fat cells, and also inhibits the release of fat from your fat cells. You can't get fat without insulin, and you can't lose fat with insulin. Obese people virtually always have chronically elevated insulin levels, a precursor to Type 2 diabetes that makes it almost impossible to lose weight.

    The only way you can lose weight on a low-fat, high-carb diet is by restricting calories - a semi-starvation diet. Not only is undereating unbearable - for experimental subjects as well as dieters - people almost always regain weight lost from semi-starvation, usually plus some. Study after study shows this to be true, whether you start out fat or lean.

    So why isn't everyone fat on a Western diet? People differ in their sensitivity to carbs - they differ in the amount of insulin released after eating carbs, and the sensitivity of their fat tissue to insulin. Some people can eat cake for every meal and not gain weight, but others will quickly fatten on a high carb diet. Unfortunately, people who don't struggle with weight often have little sympathy for those who do because they don't understand that their bodies are different. They think they're morally superior.

    Obesity is Not Caused by Gluttony and Sloth

    The nice way of saying "gluttony and sloth" is "overeating and lack of exercise". But however you say it, the fact remains: The common wisdom is that fat people cause their own problem by committing two of the seven deadly sins. No wonder there is so much fat bias.

    The conventional wisdom is that you get fat if you eat more calories than you expend - the positive caloric balance hypothesis. But the fact that semi-starvation diets almost never produce long-term weight loss strongly suggests that positive caloric balance - overeating and lack of exercise - is not the underlying cause of obesity.

    The positive caloric balance hypothesis assumes that (1) the source of the calories doesn't matter - a calorie is a calorie, and (2) energy intake and energy expenditure are independent variables. Neither of these assumptions is true:

    - A carb calorie has a very different affect on the body than a fat calorie (see above).

    - Energy expenditure is highly dependent on energy intake. Our bodies work hard to maintain a constant body weight. Research shows that if you undereat, your metabolism slows to compensate, and if you overeat, your metabolism speeds up. The idea that you can gain or lose weight over time by altering your intake by 100 calories a day is ridiculous. Your body easily compensates for this small variation (and much larger variations).

    Growing children have a positive caloric balance. But the reason they are growing is not because they are eating more calories than they are expending. They are eating more calories than they are expending because they are growing. The cause of their growth is growth hormone, not overeating. The same is true in obesity.

    Obesity is a fat storage disorder, not an eating disorder. The body is storing too many of the calories you eat as fat instead of making this dietary energy available to your muscles and organs. On a cellular level, you are experiencing semi-starvation. So you eat more, and you conserve energy by moving less. You don't get fat because you're overeating and under-exercising, you overeat and under-exercise because you're getting fat. Just as vertical growth is driven by hormones, so is the "horizontal growth" of obesity - in this case, insulin. Insulin becomes elevated by a diet too high in carbohydrates.

    Have you noticed that people who are fat don't gain weight continuously? You gain weight and then stay at that weight. This is not because of some "set point" that your body is stuck at. Your body maintains a dynamic equilibrium around usable energy, not fat. One hypothesis is that as fat cells expand, it becomes easier for them to release their fat - just as the pressure inside a blown-up balloon will push out the air. Once enough fat is in the cells that it can be mobilized (burned for fuel), a new equilibrium is reached and you stop gaining. Once fat can be mobilized, you don't need to eat as much because your cells have fuel.

    The more insulin circulating in your blood, the harder it is to mobilize your fat stores and burn fat for energy. The more carbohydrates you eat, the more insulin will be circulating in your blood. For those who are genetically vulnerable, a high carb diet eventually causes insulin levels to become chronically elevated, while muscle cells become increasingly resistant to insulin (unable to use dietary glucose for energy). Eventually, fat cells also become insulin resistant, and diabetes is the result.

    The cellular semi-starvation from excessive fat storage may be why obese women have trouble getting pregnant. It's actually similar to what happens to women who are underweight.

    -------------------------------------------------------------------------

    SOMETHING TO TRY...

    Taubes' book is quite long and extremely detailed. I'm just highlighting its main conclusions. For the evidence - which is voluminous - read the book. Or try some experiments on your own body.

    I wrote in a previous post that there are two main reasons that people become overweight: emotional eating and processed food (which is generally high carb). Processed carbohydrates are an unnatural food that cause our body wisdom cues to go haywire. Even if you vanquish emotional eating entirely, you will tend to overeat processed carbohydrates because they induce cravings.

    Processed carbs taste good, but they don't make your body feel good. They give you a buzz followed by a crash, and then constant cravings. They also can affect mood, making you depressed. If you've never gone without carbs for a period of time, you may not even realize you feel this way because of what you eat. If you have nothing to compare it to, you may think it's just you. This is why food experiments are such an important part of Stage 2 of Normal Eating. You have to experience first-hand how different foods make you feel to internalize the body wisdom. You can't read this and believe it, you have to feel it.

    So in the spirit of experimentation, try reducing your carb intake for a few days or a week and see how you feel. Don't get black-and-white about it - just see if you can slowly push down your carb intake over time. In particular, try to minimize white flour, white rice, and sweets of all kinds - including honey and artificial sweeteners. If you're feeling ambitious, try minimizing all grain for a few days - even whole wheat and brown rice. Grain is a Neolithic food, introduced with agriculture. It's not what we evolved eating, and now it's the staple of the Western diet.

    Why cut out artificial sweeteners? Research has found that artificial sweeteners will cause the body to secrete insulin, same as sugar - sweet is sweet. When I read that, I wondered if some people failed to lose weight on low-carb diets because of overuse of artificial sweeteners. If you try lowering your carbs, don't go the Atkins route of weird ingredients, using highly processed substitutes for flour and sugar. Just skip the bread and the sweets. Stick with real food, recognizable from nature.

    I've been trying this myself the last few weeks. I had no problem cutting out grain, but sweets were a sticking point. No sweet taste at all? That was tough. But I was able to taper off it, and then - surprisingly - it didn't bother me. It's really true that eating carbs induces carb craving. The physiological reasons are detailed in Taubes' book. Once you wean off it, you stop craving it. It's a bit like quitting smoking.

    Years ago I tried the Atkins diet and didn't even last a day because I felt so dizzy and weak. I now realize this is because I wasn't eating fat. One day last week I again tried eating zero carbs, but this time with lots of bacon and sausage (from the farmer's market - no nitrates), and I felt fine. Actually, I felt better than fine, to my great surprise. My energy level was high and I didn't feel hungry at all. And I've lost a few pounds since I started experimenting.

    People in the forum hate when I talk about nutrition; they say it feels like a diet. But it's not a diet if it's just an experiment to see how you feel, and it's not a diet if you choose to eat a certain way because you feel good eating that way.

    An important part of Normal Eating is understanding, on a deep level, that it is your right to eat whatever your want. But with rights come responsibilities, and this other side of the coin is just as important. No one can tell you what to eat, and that means you must take responsibility for your own eating. In the end, nutrition matters.

    So what do you think? Are you willing to try lowering your carbs as an experiment? If not, why not? If yes, post your experiences in the blog, where this article is cross-posted:

    [...]

    Sheryl Canter
    Author of "Normal Eating for Normal Weight"
    125 people found this helpful
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  • Reviewed in the United States on May 13, 2008
    Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase
    A book this detailed and controversial is difficult to review without writing another book in the process. Since many reviews have already covered much of the content and conclusions, I'll try to say things that aren't already in the list of 156 reviews so far (that I recall). (...which is not easy.)

    This book is a review of science. That the science happens to be about nutrition is primary only if that is your actual interest. People interested in the nature of science and its process, politics and pitfalls, should find this fascinating even if they never gave a thought to why fat seems so much easier to gain than to lose (particularly in the larger amounts), or to why the "diseases of civilization" (diabetes, heart disease, Alzheimer, schizophrenia, cancer, etc.) are skyrocketing.

    There are several critically important topics in nutrition and related areas that could have been added to this, but I suspect a 2000 page book would have been difficult to sell. It's obvious he had to choose a focus and a linear path through a gigantic topic.

    As part of the fact that it is a science review and not a novel or diet book, there are a few important considerations.

    1. It is a review of science; it is not science itself except in the form of intelligent inquiry and review; it is not "research". Taubes is not a formal researcher, though he is science-trained and specializes in investigating and writing about science. In short, this is OLD research, not NEW research: it's just that it's research many people probably either don't know about or learned about rather differently.

    2. Aside from a small 'final conclusions' bit, there isn't really anything to argue about in terms of 'disagreeing with Taubes' in this; rather, people would have to argue with the actual research reviewed. Readers could complain about what is included or excluded ('too much' some say, 'not enough' say others), that's about it. Even if one disagrees with Taubes's overview-conclusions, the degree of careful detail combined with the linear-layout and the courage to present a truly alternative view on highly politicized issues (some of his ideas left me stunned, they were so new to me!), is worthy of respect.

    3. This book is just slightly like a nutritional version of 'Forbidden Science' (about Archeology), and I translate the point of it rather like this: "For those formally educated, here's the stuff you probably didn't learn, or didn't learn in this way for sure, and of what you did learn, here's a new look at some of the assumed cornerstones of belief-system edifices. And for those not formally educated, here's a trail through history and science to start with: here's what's accepted then and now, and here's an alternative path to consider." What readers want to do with all that is entirely up to them. The most important thing is getting the information into the larger world to be at least considered and brought to light finally or differently in some cases; what part of all this turns out to be right, or wrong, or misunderstood, or differently understood, in the end is less the issue here than just finally beginning some kind of dialogue on these important points.

    4. I doubt the Final Answer[tm] of nutrition is yet at hand, and so I'm sure there must be plenty of areas to further explore and in the end, it might not all agree with the general framework Taubes ended up with (or, it might--I don't know). It's a review of so many different studies and related areas, that it is highly unlikely any single work could be perfect or perfectly complete on all that -- it would have to be 10x its length, at least, and be written from a century in the future. The important thing is that the book became available at all, because it is the first thing courageous enough to "question authority" to this degree, detailed enough to provide a jumping-off point for legitimate medical people to re-evaluate some old ideas on their own, and yet readable enough to provide an entry gateway to at least a small portion of the layman public.

    5. This is an educational book, but it is not entry-level except for very good readers with some understanding of basic science. This is no dumbed-down textbook; this actually requires some decent cognitive skills. I found it fascinating, but although I can read about 800 pages in a day if I have all the daylight hours, it took me a full week to wade through it in long evenings after work. (This might have gone faster, did I not have to keep stopping to rant and rave to a friend about things in the content!) If you are not a strong reader, I do not recommend it unless you have a year to work on it.

    6. The book is very dense in information, and this is its strong point and its purpose. That means if you're not into the topics of science or nutrition etc., it's either going to put you to sleep or fry your brain. I loved it: the world has more than enough simple diet books for laymen. What we really needed was a book that combined science detail with readability, and science history with the commercial present, for an understanding of how we got to where we are, and what that means to science, to nutrition, to health, and to our future, both as individuals and as a species.

    7. On the problem side, the publisher's presentation makes this seem like a "diet book". This is not a paint-by-number eating plan. If you want a book about what to eat and when and how to count it, there are many, but this isn't one of those. It's also not a "pleasant afternoon reading," unless you're a fairly serious intellectual. That is sure to disappoint many who are unlikely to be willing to get through it. (Some people are simply better with other forms of learning than dense text, and this really IS "dense text".) It is a good thing this book is not exactly for the masses, though, since I think if we could take all this information and distill it into sound-bytes that the public would easily understand, there might be lynch mobs arriving at some health agency doorways.

    **
    I feel that nobody in the field of medicine could write this book: they'd be ruined for the degree of questioning the party line/ status quo, and if they were researchers they wouldn't get funding from any of the all-pervasive sources (generally, the food industries killing us and the pharmaceutical industries not-curing but eternally-treating us), and the problem is, a person educated in that system is highly unlikely to break out of the mold to find this road to begin with, unless they are really exceptionally independent thinkers. Gary's position as a science writer, and the years he put into studying this, combined with him having no major vested interests in the conclusions (such as some of the more consumer-book authors of lowcarb diet plans), is the perfect combination. It's too 'heavy' to ever make him much money I bet (too small an audience), nowhere near worth the hours and years he put into it, but I hope that he doesn't regret the work, because I'm sure many people are genuinely grateful for the book -- I am.

    **
    I'm from a family of huge women. Women who basically diet constantly for 20, 30, 40 years and they're still fat. I was fairly athletic until my mid-20s, when two years of a very intense, work+school+commute, sleep deprived, high stress, not eating daily except mega-carbs right before sleep, resulted in a massive rapid weight gain. Later when traditional dieting didn't work at all for me, I simply gave up, not willing to be neurotic daily about something my family made seem unsolvable. (OK, I nearly shot myself over it in all honesty, but once I got over myself, I moved on.)

    About 15 years later (now huge), I was hospitalized for untreated asthma infections. While there I had a heart-rate reaction to days of steroids plus pain and a situation, and that got me assigned a cardiologist (though I had no heart condition). When I got out of the hospital and visited him, he wrote me a prescription to the Protein Power Life Plan book by the Drs. Eades.

    Helluva drug: I've kept off over 125lbs for 18 months now, and medical symptoms (acid reflux, complexion problems, severe asthma, allergies, unexplained rashes, chronic exhaustion, brain-fog, bloating, etc.) all vanished within weeks of making an effort to ditch most carbs and increase protein and fat and add some supplements (no exercise involved).

    In fairness, this can't all be attributed to lowcarb, because getting off gluten (solely by accident to begin) is a good chunk of the symptom resolution. I am exercising more now that I can finally move enough to do some of it. (I can mow my lawn, weed it, rake it, shovel soil for the garden. As of September 18 2006 when I went on lowcarb, I couldn't even stand for 60 seconds without screaming back pain, couldn't walk around a store. The changes in my life are radical.)

    But my respect for Taubes's book is not because of my experience; rather, it's because he finally gave me a way to help my brain's intellectual understanding connect with my body's experiential reality. I really needed to understand some of this which seemed very confusing as it contradicted all the tenets of "pop science". I am no expert on anything, and I was cynical about "lowcarb" at first, but the results have been good enough to change my life, and my future, and make me seriously interested in the subject. I may never be thin, but at least I've learned enough to head off destruction.

    Reading about why poor science, social good-ol-boys and political peer pressure has resulted in the train wreck of modern nutrition/healthcare, realizing that nearly 20 years of my life were basically trashed as a result of believing the government's advice, made me a little homicidal for awhile, but I recovered. Now, I'd just like to see some decent, intelligent dialogue and research happening thanks to this guy's gutsy exploration and road map to another view. I'm guessing not too much will happen and he'll have to get old and die before the larger world recognizes just how important this book is (was) at this time.

    If you are interested in these subjects and you read very well, this book is the boss. No matter what you believe or don't about nutrition, this book is worth a read.
    108 people found this helpful
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  • Camilla - Italy
    5.0 out of 5 stars Alimentazione, scienza e storia (in inglese)
    Reviewed in Italy on August 2, 2018
    Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
    Questa è la seconda copia che compro di questo libro. L'ho regalata ad un amico con cui spesso si parla di alimentazione.
    È un testo illuminante sui pericoli dell'eccesso di carboidrati che caratterizza l'alimentazione moderna. In più, è argomentato in maniera solidissima, con riferimenti così vari e dettagliati alla ricerca scientifica e alla storia della scienza dell'alimentazione da far comprendere come si è arrivati agli attuali modelli alimentari, alle loro criticità e le possibili alternative.
    Il tutto scritto in maniera rigorosissima ma accessibile. Un esempio di giornalismo di divulgazione scientifica confortante in un panorama editoriale dove toppo spesso l'argomento è vittima dell'improvvisazione e della polemica.
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  • Andrew
    5.0 out of 5 stars Bahnbrechend, hervorragend, unglaublich, genial, ...
    Reviewed in Germany on October 25, 2013
    Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
    Gary Taubes schafft es mit diesem bahnbrechenden Werk die Zusammenhänge der letzten 200 Jahre Wissenschaftsgeschichte in Medizin, Ernährungs"wissenschaft" und anderen nach zu zeichnen und so ein klares, unglaublich mutiges und differenziertes Bild der Entstehung, Ursachen, Hintergründe und Lösung vieler, ernährungsbedingter Volksleiden wie Adipositas, Übergewicht, Diabetes II, etc. dem Leser zu vermitteln. Der klaren, sehr spannenden Aufbereitung der wissenschaftlichen Fakten und menschlichen Schwächen zahlreicher (überbewerteter und fälschlich als vertrauenswürdig bewerteten) Wissenschaftlicher und v.a. auch Pseudo-Wissenschaftler, ebenso wie Politiker gebührt Dank und Hochachtung.

    Es wird verständlich, warum über Jahrzehnte Falschinformationen und Meinungen einzelner den Bevölkerung, gerade in USA und Deutschland als "Ernährungsempfehlungen" verkauft wurden (wenig Fett, viele Kohlenhydrate z.B.), welche dazu führten (und immer weiter dazu führen), dass Übergewicht, Adipositas, Diabetes, jedes Jahr weiter zunehmen und nicht nur die Mehrheit unserer sog. reichen Industriestaaten davon betroffen ist, sondern bald unglaubliche 70 oder gar 80% nach div. Schätzungen. Zeit aufzuwachen aus dem Informationsnetz an Falsch- und Fehlinformationen, schlechter und Pseudowissenschaft, das überwiegend Meinungs-basiert ist und dem überwiegend keinerlei ernst zu nehmende Wissenschaft zu Grunde liegt.

    Es ist durchaus als bahnbrechend zu bezeichnen, im Laufe der 650 Seiten fallen einem viele Zusammenhänge wie Schuppen von den Augen. Vieles klärt sich. Zum Beispiel, dass Reduktionsdiäten nur eine 1%-ige Erfolgschance haben und gleichzeitig als das Non-Plus-Ultra von allen Fachgesellschaften zur Gewichtsabnahme empfohlen werden. Wobei von vielen Stellen deren mangelnde Wirksamkeit inzwischen teilweise wenigstens erwähnt wird. Was diese jedoch nicht daran hindert sich gleichzeitig zu widersprechen und, wie die Deutsche Gesellschaft für Ernährung oder die Deutsche Diabetes Gesellschaft (ebenso wie deren amerikanische Pendants), weiterhin diese als einzig wirksame Methoden empfehlen. Ebenso, dass - und das ist zentral - die wichtigsten Ursachen der Übergewichts- und Adipositas-Epidemie ein (wie auch immer gearteter) "Bewegungsmangel" und eine "erhöhte Nahrungsaufnahme" seien (v.a die angeblich so schädlichen Nahrungsfette). Die Verwechslung von Ursache und Wirkung an dieser Stelle ist einschneidend. Die dargelegten (wissenschaftlich unstrittigen) Zusammenhänge von Kohlenhydrat-reicher Nahrung > dauerhaft erhöhtem Insulinspiegel > Aufbau von Körperfett und Verhinderung des Verbrauchs von Körperfett, ist einleuchtend. Und dennoch weitgehend ignoriert in der Fachwelt. Und in den Bevölkerungen oft unbekannt.

    Das Buch beschreibt auch ein- und nachdrücklich, welche unglaublichen Vorgänge im Bereich der Forschung im Bereich Medizin (v.a. chronische Krankheiten und Adipositas, bzw. Übergewicht) und Ernährung die letzten Jahrzehnte beherrschten: schlechte oder völlig vernachlässigte Wissenschaft, Aufstellen von unbewiesenen Behauptungen und jahrzehntelanger Ignoranz und stetiges Verkaufen von persönlichen Meinungen als wissenschaftliche Ergebnisse. So konnte z.B. bis heute der Zusammenhang von Nahrungsfetten und Krankheiten wissenschaftlich nicht bewiesen werden (was auch von Fach-Autoritäten gerne anders dargestellt wird, aus welchen Gründen auch immer). Ebenso wenig, und das ist wohl der größte Verdienst von Gary Taubes, wurde seine Kohlenhydrat-Hypothese bisher ausreichend wissenschaftlich erforscht und wird glasklar verständlich, warum - z.B. aus Ignoranz und schlechter Wissenschaft vermutlich - was sich nach diesem Buch jedoch ändern dürfte. Nachdem die in Medizin, Ernährungswissenschaft und Gesundheitspolitik vorherrschenden Meinungen eben genau das sind - Meinungen, und nichts davon einer wissenschaftlichen Überprüfung stand hält, kann die Wahrscheinlichkeit, dass Gary Taubes Kohlenhydrat-Hypothesen richtig sind, als sehr hoch angesehen werden.

    Dieses aufrüttelnde Werk sollte jeder Mediziner, Ernährungswissenschaftler, Gesundheitspolitiker, Forscher in den betreffenden Disziplinen und alle direkt von Übergewicht, Adipositas, Diabetes, und allen Volkskrankheiten betroffenen Menschen lesen und sein Wissen sollte in Grundschulen unterrichtet werden. Es schafft einmalige Klarheit. Das Wissen über die wissenschaftliche Faktenlage zu Kohlenhydraten und die schädlichen Auswirkungen auf den Stoffwechsel der allermeisten Menschen und die genannten, bekannten Volkskrankheiten, könnte vielen Millionen Menschen helfen, endlich gesund zu werden oder gesund zu bleiben.

    Eines der mit Abstand bedeutendsten Bücher überhaupt.
  • GS
    5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent review
    Reviewed in Australia on September 2, 2018
    Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
    Great read for those interested in understanding how main stream diet advice had gotten it so wrong
  • the contributor
    5.0 out of 5 stars This book is an amazing tour de force which really spells out how such ...
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 15, 2018
    Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
    WOW. Just wow. This book is an amazing tour de force which really spells out how such twisted messages around carbs/fat/fibre/sugar have reached the public - in a scandalous way. A real expose of a book. It describes how many myths have been perpetuated by the media; how academics and their personal allegiances and personalities have influenced the outcomes of scientific research in a very non-scientific way; and exactly why carbs are so bad for us. I am immediately going to read all other books written by Gary Taubes. This book is VERY INVOLVED, so if you are looking for a simple overview or you don't want to get lost in the nitty gritty detail, it may not be the best book for you - but if you love to get stuck in and make decisions based on facts themselves, then this is THE book. I think it is possibly the best book I've ever read from a readable-science perspective...
    One person found this helpful
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  • M. D.
    5.0 out of 5 stars The Bible of modern nutrition research & history
    Reviewed in Canada on August 29, 2013
    Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
    If you care about the history of nutrition research as well as the current scientific and political state of nutrition research, this book is required reading.
    No "expert" can truly call themselves expert in nutrition without reading this book, regardless of the fancy credentials and letters besides their names they may have.
    Even for the laymen, reading and comprehending this book will give you enough knowledge to teach a nutrition 101 course in college/university, based solely on it. That's how informative it is. Also you get to use fancy terms like "disease of civilization", whilst actually protecting yourself from said diseases.
    After you read this, keep it close for reference & check out the paleosphere; online blogs about the paleo diet/evolution-based nutrition

    This book mostly focuses on obesity (and cholesterol and heart disease in the first 4 chapters) but some chapters like ch.5 & 13 more generally talk about all the modern Diseases of Civilization.
    It is because of this I recommend people get this instead of Taubes' other work, Why We Get Fat.
    People till curious should also get Nick Lane's Sex Power Suicide, Mark Sisson's Primal Blueprint 21-day book, Weston Price's free book, Nutrition & Physical Degeneration, and finally checkout all the blogs dedicated to the paleo lifestyle.

    Pictured below: The Notes and Bibliography section of this book is extensive, as you can see by the sheer number of pages these sections take up.
    Customer image
    M. D.
    5.0 out of 5 stars
    The Bible of modern nutrition research & history

    Reviewed in Canada on August 29, 2013
    If you care about the history of nutrition research as well as the current scientific and political state of nutrition research, this book is required reading.
    No "expert" can truly call themselves expert in nutrition without reading this book, regardless of the fancy credentials and letters besides their names they may have.
    Even for the laymen, reading and comprehending this book will give you enough knowledge to teach a nutrition 101 course in college/university, based solely on it. That's how informative it is. Also you get to use fancy terms like "disease of civilization", whilst actually protecting yourself from said diseases.
    After you read this, keep it close for reference & check out the paleosphere; online blogs about the paleo diet/evolution-based nutrition

    This book mostly focuses on obesity (and cholesterol and heart disease in the first 4 chapters) but some chapters like ch.5 & 13 more generally talk about all the modern Diseases of Civilization.
    It is because of this I recommend people get this instead of Taubes' other work, Why We Get Fat.
    People till curious should also get Nick Lane's Sex Power Suicide, Mark Sisson's Primal Blueprint 21-day book, Weston Price's free book, Nutrition & Physical Degeneration, and finally checkout all the blogs dedicated to the paleo lifestyle.

    Pictured below: The Notes and Bibliography section of this book is extensive, as you can see by the sheer number of pages these sections take up.
    Images in this review
    Customer imageCustomer imageCustomer imageCustomer imageCustomer image

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