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 If you think you know everything about diet...think again January 31, 2008
Jacqueline F (London)
37 out of 37 found this review helpful
This is a BIG, highly readable and hugely informative book, written by American science journalist Gary Taubes. I read the US edition, which was published there as "Good Calories, Bad Calories". I assumed that when it appeared in the UK, it would arrive in a blaze of publicity. So far, it seems I was wrong.
Taubes' interest is in the scientific basis for the received wisdom about what makes up a healthy diet and what makes people fat. We all know (because we're told ad nauseam) that the current obesity epidemic is the result of people overeating and having sedentary lifestyles. And overeating is generally interpreted as eating too much fat and too few fruits and vegetables.
Taubes has spent years going back to the original research and interviewing scientists. And he's found that in fact, there is very little real science behind what we are routinely told about dietary fat. Instead, assumptions linking dietary fat to heart disease were made in 1960s America and the "fat is bad for you" bandwagon rolled on from there.
The book also challenges the view that obesity is "caused" by overeating and taking too little exercise. It's like saying that alcoholism is "caused" by drinking too much alcohol - as an explanation, it doesn't get you very far. Taubes argues that obesity is actually a problem of fat accumulation. If an animal's body is working properly, increased energy intake (extra food) will be matched by increased energy expenditure. Conversely, if you restrict food, the animal will be less active. In both cases, fat stores will remain the same. But if the body isn't working properly to maintain this homeostasis, and if instead, it stores calories eaten as fat and is unable to release fat from fat cells to provide energy, the animal is going to be hungry and lethargic, while accumulating even more fat. The typical symptoms of obesity.
And the cause of our obesity problem (and many other chronic diseases of civilisation) Taubes argues, could be a diet very high in carbohydrate (and particularly, refined carbohydrate). That type of diet leads to constantly high blood insulin, which in turn stops fat cells releasing fatty acids for use as fuel. Type I diabetics have difficulty maintaining body fat. People treated with insulin have difficulty not putting on weight. And as a society we are eating far more carbohydrates that ever before, not least because if we try to avoid eating fat, we tend to get our calories from carbohydrate foods.
This book isn't trying to sell us the "Taubes diet" or the "Taubes supplement range" - the author is trying to convince us, our doctors and our scientists that the current received wisdom is not only flawed but may also be causing enormous harm. The book is a fascinating, page- turning read, debunking many of our nutritionists' most cherished platitudes left, right and centre. Well worth reading.
A fascinating read January 29, 2008
S. A. Forrester (Brighton, UK)
26 out of 26 found this review helpful
This is, without a doubt, the most interesting and thought provoking book I have read about diet and nutrition. Based on what I learned from this book my perspective has totally shifted on what may or may not constitute a healthy diet. I can not recommend this book enough to anyone who has been lead to believe their health may be at risk due to raised cholesterol levels or any other alledgedly diet related condition. Gary Taubes simply lifts the lid on what may well turn out to be the biggest health campaign of misinformation in living memory. The amount of information in this book is huge, and although it is extremely well written it took me about a week to read. I had to keep stopping and considering the implications. Mr Taubes has constructed a truly brilliant and informative book that is both damning of conventional dogma regarding diet and enlightening in respect of how our body actually deals with what we eat.
This is a very comprehensive, well-balanced book; it deserves to be taken seriously. February 6, 2008
M. W. Ellwood (Abingdon, GB)
18 out of 18 found this review helpful
Gary Taubes is not a dietician or a medical doctor, but a journalist with a science background. He has a solid track record of serious, scientific journalism.
I had seen some of the publicity surrounding the publication of what I take it must be the American version of this book ("Good Calories, Bad Calories"), and also have read some of his articles in the quality press and on the web. I liked his articles, but based on the reaction to his U.S. book, I did wonder whether this one would be either a polemic, or possibly, well, a bit dull.
In fact it is neither, but is a solidly, good read. Sure it's quite long, but then it covers many years and a lot of material. If you really want to know the history, background and facts of "dieting", this is an excellent place to start.
If I could give it six stars I would.
Regards,
M.
p.s. Updated to respond to Tiger Lily's comments: Sorry to disagree with your analysis, but I believe GT when he says he didn't have preconceived
ideas. As for the EPIC study, even websites which are sympathetic to it
only seem to say that it might be suggestive of certain conclusions,
rather than definitive. This study on the other hand seemed to find no benefits in "healthy" diets:
http://junkfoodscience.blogspot.com/2007/10/junkfood-science-exclusive-big-one.html
Good luck to you on your vegan diet. It's very hard to get all the nutrients you need that way.
M.
A heroic book January 8, 2008
A. Turner
27 out of 28 found this review helpful
I read this book from cover to cover in one go. A staggering amount of work and research went into it, and it is a very comprehensive account of research, ideas and dogma related to health and obesity over the last century. It is a shame that many of the people involved did/do not have the same appreciation of what constitutes real science as Gary Taubes does. As a scientist myself I am horrified by the levels of arrogance, incompetence, dishonesty and fraud documented in this history.
It should be mandatory for every health profession to read it.
At last, a book on diet and health you can get your teeth into February 7, 2008
Fighting Fit (England)
13 out of 13 found this review helpful
This is a wonderful book. Gary Taubes has painstakingly pieced together the key discoveries in a hundred years or so of research in the intertwined fields of metabolism, diet, obesity, diabetes, and heart disease. He uncovers a very disturbing story. For the interested layman who takes the trouble to read carefully the 450 pages there are many rewards - and I should make it plain, that having a few years ago rid myself of 40 pounds overweight, I am a keenly interested layman. Firstly, he gives a clear overview of the science, and how it was uncovered since the 1880s. Second, we have an overview of the clinical experience and findings of the doctors who treat day in day out, decade in decade out, people suffering from these diseases. Thirdly we have a clear exposition of the develoment over time of public policy - what questions are researched, and what messages are issued to the public and to the medical profession as the interpretations of the research.
The distubing factors relate to two fundamental issues. Although it has been well-known since the 1920s that metabolism, diet, obesity, diabetes and heart disease are all closely related, the relevant research, and its publication is specialised to such an extent that newly established science in one field is long delayed in being applied in the others, hampering by many years any progress in tackling the overall problem. The second disturbing issue is the disconnection in the last 30 years or so, between on the one hand, the findings of doctors treating patients and the lab scientists investigating the underlying causes, and on the other the choice of studies undertaken and the interpretation of results into public policy.
If you want to go beyond the next diet best-seller and understand the science around diet and health, if you want to make sense of what your doctor and your government tells you, if you want to understand how your body behaves and take your own decisions accordingly, this book is for you.
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