Good Calories, Bad Calories
In the recently published book, Good Calories, Bad Calories: Challenging the Conventional Wisdom on Diet, Weight Control, and Disease, Gary Taubes challenges our dietary beliefs, often accepted as true, by approaching the published research from the perspective of a skeptic.
Taubes finds much of what we think lacks support from findings from data published throughout the last century.
Taubes tackles a number of issues in the book, first reviewing the history of how we got where we are today with public health policies and dietary recommendations; and why, even without good scientific evidence to support our policies as they developed, they were formed and promoted as fact to the population at large.
Diet-Heart Hypothesis vs Carbohydrate Hypothesis
He then tackles what were two competing hypotheses at the time we hit the crossroad in our search for understanding how diet plays a role in disease: the diet-heart hypothesis and the carbohydrate hypothesis.
He asked, "If we had taken this other fork in the road, what would we have come to believe?"
The full weight of the evidence, Taubes contends, led him to conclusions he did not anticipate at the start; conclusions that are controversial but open-ended for more discussion, interpretation, analysis and trial.
One such thought-provoking piece of the diet-health-weight puzzle is that carbohydrates contribute to the storage of body fat in ways that are not fully appreciated by researchers; diets rich with carbohydrate, especially refined & processed carbohydrate, act in the metabolism to foster weight gain while inhibiting release of stored fatty acids for use as energy due to hormone signals from insulin and the effects of circulating alpha-glycerol phosphate.
With insulin and alpha-glycerol phosphate in play, the evidence suggests we're effectively running on empty despite consuming plenty of food and calories each day, suggesting it isn't just how much we eat, but what we eat which contributes to our growing waistlines.
What Do We Believe?
Taubes provokes us to examine our beliefs about a healthful diet by providing a wealth of data from hundreds of studies reviewed in his research in writing the book. That is, he presents a compelling argument that the supportive data used to maintain the status quo of the diet-heart hypothesis and our current dietary guidelines is not as sturdy as we're led to believe, and makes the case that for well over a century there has been, all along, the competing alternate theory, the carbohydrate hypothesis, that has been ignored despite compelling data.
No matter what one currently believes, this book is an eye-opening examination of the science and the history that led us to where we are today; a compelling review of the weight of the evidence from both sides; and a resource rich with citations that allow us to begin examining and questioning the validity of our beliefs in the connections between diet and health.
55 Comments
Add Your Comment
ADVERTISING
New
- FROM DIET BLOG
- On-Off Fasting: Does It Work?
- 400 Calorie Fix
- 5 Factor World Diet
- Quick Giveaway: Powerhouse Weight Loss Game
- FORUM
- Low Carb Atkins Diet- Tips to Cut the Carbs.
- How Can I Gain a Healthy Weight and Keep it?
- How Do I Eat Healthy at University?
- Starving Myself and Exercising, But Not Losing an Ounce?
Categories
| Body Image Celebrities Diet Pills Diets Exercise |
Fast Food Funny Stuff Success Stories Teens and Kids Tips and Tools |
RSS Feed
Follow @DietBlog on Twitter
It doesn't sound like this book presents anything new to me, but maybe I am not reading this review thoroughly enough (and I haven't read the book).
Are his main arguments that the food pyramid is wrong and that low GI carbs are the real cause of weight gain? This is really old news. When did Atkin's come out, early 80s? He mentions it in all of his books. South Beach made this even more popular. And the ideas are probably even older than those books, I'm not sure.
Fat is stored more rapidly when insulin is spiked (very old news), the U.S. government (pushed by midwest grain companies) came out with dietary guidlines high in processed carbs probably highly contributing to America's obesity.
But then again maybe I am jumping the gun calling this book a "review of what we already know".
And to answer "Why do all the bad things taste so good?". Evolutionary advantage. High energy or things that will make you put fat on should be more enticing to consume so that the animal can store more fat (energy) in case of famine (i.e. winter). Over simplified, yeah, but I think that is the genearl idea.
ReplyIt still doesn't explain why we craves hostess cupcakes and twinkies.
ReplyKailash said
I have a confession to make... Carbs are essential. Damn, I hate myself for saying that, but it's true.
say it isnt true. But seriously, after I get my daily 25g fiber and a conservative 25% calories of protein, I dont have room for very many processed grains. I really dont feel deprived of my twinkies because Im trying to get more of what I want, not less.
ReplyNo, that would be a terrible over simplification of a 460 page book.
Here a good interview with Taubes that hits the main points.
http://tinyurl.com/ys5h8z
ReplyI think meat/animal products can be healthy in very small amounts. Bad for the planet, and if you're like me and don't think causing unnecessary suffering is a good thing, it can be very expensive, for humanely raised, grass-fed beef, or free-range chicken. And nobody is going to convince me that brown rice and carrots are unhealthy.
From today's times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/27/weekinreview/27bittman.html?pagewanted=2&ei=5087&em&en=5dfe202cdd898fe6&ex=1201755600
One thing I'm having doubts about, however is soy. Japanese, who I'm not so convinced are more active than I am, (maybe more than you) eat lots of it. Lots or rice, lots of soy, lots of seaweed, fish, little meat, no dairy. Now that they have McDonalds, it's likely their claim as healthiest people is likely to come to an end.
I hope you folks who eat all that meat eat naturally raised, hormone and antibiotic free meat. Got man-boobs?
ReplyYeah, I pay a huge premium for all my steaks, ground beef, beefheart, liver and tongue, pork bacon and breakfast sausages, kielbasa, italian sausage and bratwurst (all nitrate free), whole chickens, eggs and cheese. These cows, chickens and pigs are raised on an Amish farm about an hour south of here (Kalamazoo, MI).
I also buy the commercially produced organic yogurts, butter and string cheese (think, Organic Valley or equivalent), clarified butter (Purity Farms) and ground buffalo (Blackwing). All my produce is organic (kale, butternut squash, garlic, etc.) and local whenever available. We can still grow kale in the winter!
In-season I hit up the farmer's market weekly. I choose local over organic, when possible. I eat so many fruits in-season, that we are blessed with in West Michigan. My favorites are cherries and blueberries, coincidentally, for which Michigan is famous.
If you buy from the right source, I don't believe that meat is hurting the planet. Particularly with the ruminants (cows, goats, sheep, etc.) which can graze on land too rocky or otherwise unsuitable for vegetable farming. It's those factory farms that gotta go.
Check out TheMeatrix.com if you haven't already. And its parent website, to learn more about humane and sustainable farming and the availability of such products.
ReplyI don’t know about extraneous variables, but I do know that Asians do eat a whole lot of WHITE rice and VERY little meat, especially beef. But I also noticed that Asians such as Vietnamese and Chinese eat a lot of vegetables and sweet treats are different there and not eaten as often. That may have something to do with them being so healthy. I don’t know.
ReplyAnd they move like heck. They don't have cars. Some of them work all day in the fields, if you're talking Vietnamese rice paddies.
ReplyJust don't eat refined carbs. My carbs of choice are sweet potatoes, brown rice, quinoa.
ReplyKailash, if people consumed meat the way you do(ethically and sustainably) it wouldn't be dangerous to the environment. However, most of the meat consumed nowadays is intensively reared and very destructive to the environment. Read the NY Times article: Rethinking the Meat Guzzler.
Here is what I would consider a very honest review of the Japanese diet:
http://www.westonaprice.org/traditional_diets/japan.html
Most surprising to me:
Reply"When the high infant mortality rate in America is discounted, American men have life-spans equal to Japanese men and American women have longer life-spans than Japanese women."
You obviously haven't been to Bangkok lately! :-)
Replyit seems like these things are so often framed in terms of "carbs vs. meats" or whatever. that's kind of missing the point. it's REFINED carbs that are bad for you...refined sugar, processed white flour/bread, etc. etc. or worse yet, refined sugars + processed fats (e.g. candy bar). i think that whether you eat meat or not, the best thing you can do for your diet is to cut out processed food and eat lots of fruits and veggies in their natural form.
ReplyI am reading the book now. What Taubes did was examine numerous research projects, some published and some unpublished. He went into the writing project with an open mind after writing an article for Science magazine and the NY Times Magazine. In doing his research and studying the research of others, he found many things he was surprised to find. It's a thorough and exhausting overview of nutrition studies done in the past 100 or so years. For anyone interested in reading about nutrition, it's a definite must. It's not a book written for the masses though because it's very dense with research findings. It's not purely academic either though. Anyone denigrating this book should do so only after reading it.
Reply[quote]I have a confession to make... Carbs are essential.[/quote]
Actually, that's exactly NOT the case. There are Essential Fatty Acids, which your body can't make on it's own, and there are Essential Amino Acids (proteins) which your body cannot make on it's own -- but there are exactly [i]zero[/i] Essential Carbohydrates, because your body can make literally every carbohydrate it needs out of fat.
Reply[url=http://www.squidoo.com/bad_science]Arananthi[/url]