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Good Calories, Bad Calories |  | Author: Gary Taubes
Publisher: Knopf
Category: Book
List Price: $27.95
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Seller: fivephoenixes
Rating:  261 reviews
Sales Rank: 64297
Format: Deckle Edge
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Pages: 640
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.1
Dimensions (in): 9.4 x 6.6 x 1.7
ISBN: 1400040787
Dewey Decimal Number: 613.283
EAN: 9781400040780
Publication Date: September 25, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
In this groundbreaking book, the result of seven years of research in every science connected with the impact of nutrition on health, award-winning science writer Gary Taubes 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 with more and more people acting on this advice, we have seen unprecedented epidemics of obesity and diabetes. Taubes argues persuasively that the problem lies in refined carbohydrates (white flour, sugar, easily digested starches) and sugars–via their dramatic and longterm effects on insulin, the hormone that regulates fat accumulation–and that the key to good health is the kind of calories we take in, not the number. There are good calories, and bad ones.
Good Calories
These are from foods without easily digestible carbohydrates and sugars. These foods can be eaten without restraint.
Meat, fish, fowl, cheese, eggs, butter, and non-starchy vegetables.
Bad Calories
These are from foods that stimulate excessive insulin secretion and so make us fat and increase our risk of chronic disease—all refined and easily digestible carbohydrates and sugars. The key is not how much vitamins and minerals they contain, but how quickly they are digested. (So apple juice or even green vegetable juices are not necessarily any healthier than soda.)
Bread and other baked goods, potatoes, yams, rice, pasta, cereal grains, corn, sugar (sucrose and high fructose corn syrup), ice cream, candy, soft drinks, fruit juices, bananas and other tropical fruits, and beer.
Taubes traces how the common assumption that carbohydrates are fattening was abandoned in the 1960s when fat and cholesterol were blamed for heart disease and then –wrongly–were seen as the causes of a host of other maladies, including cancer. He shows us how these unproven hypotheses were emphatically embraced by authorities in nutrition, public health, and clinical medicine, in spite of how well-conceived clinical trials have consistently refuted them. He also documents the dietary trials of carbohydrate-restriction, which consistently show that the fewer carbohydrates we consume, the leaner we will be.
With precise references to the most significant existing clinical studies, he convinces us that there is no compelling scientific evidence demonstrating that saturated fat and cholesterol cause heart disease, that salt causes high blood pressure, and that fiber is a necessary part of a healthy diet. Based on the evidence that does exist, he leads us to conclude that the only healthy way to lose weight and remain lean is to eat fewer carbohydrates or to change the type of the carbohydrates we do eat, and, for some of us, perhaps to eat virtually none at all.
The 11 Critical Conclusions of Good Calories, Bad Calories:
1. Dietary fat, whether saturated or not, does not cause heart disease.
2. Carbohydrates do, because of their effect on the hormone insulin. The more easily-digestible and refined the carbohydrates and the more fructose they contain, the greater the effect on our health, weight, and well-being.
3. Sugars—sucrose (table sugar) and high fructose corn syrup specifically—are particularly harmful. The glucose in these sugars raises insulin levels; the fructose they contain overloads the liver.
4. Refined carbohydrates, starches, and sugars are also the most likely dietary causes of cancer, Alzheimer’s Disease, and the other common chronic diseases of modern times.
5. Obesity is a disorder of excess fat accumulation, not overeating and not sedentary behavior.
6. Consuming excess calories does not cause us to grow fatter any more than it causes a child to grow taller.
7. Exercise does not make us lose excess fat; it makes us hungry.
8. We get fat because of an imbalance—a disequilibrium—in the hormonal regulation of fat tissue and fat metabolism. More fat is stored in the fat tissue than is mobilized and used for fuel. We become leaner when the hormonal regulation of the fat tissue reverses this imbalance.
9. Insulin is the primary regulator of fat storage. When insulin levels are elevated, we stockpile calories as fat. When insulin levels fall, we release fat from our fat tissue and burn it for fuel.
10. By stimulating insulin secretion, carbohydrates make us fat and ultimately cause obesity. By driving fat accumulation, carbohydrates also increase hunger and decrease the amount of energy we expend in metabolism and physical activity.
11. The fewer carbohydrates we eat, the leaner we will be.
Good Calories, Bad Calories is a tour de force of scientific investigation–certain to redefine the ongoing debate about the foods we eat and their effects on our health.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 261
 Meticulous journalism from someone who really understands the science March 9, 2010
haig shahinian (Los Angeles, Ca)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is one of the most rigorously researched books on nutrition I have ever read. The author goes to great lengths to synthesize evidence from a variety of different sources going back over 200 years. Taubes not only compiles and analyzes the data, but deeply understands the concepts, at times it seems he does so more than the research scientists themselves. I cannot recommend this book more.
The Truth About Obesity March 4, 2010
Samuel Smith (Toronto, ON Canada)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
In a nutshell: Eating, ultimately, is about feeding cells in our body. Hunger is internal starvation. We overeat when our metabolism doesn't liberate fat stores fast enough, resulting in cellular starvation, and hence hunger. Carbs inhibit this process by stimulating too much insulin and insulin resistance. This is culminative, and in the worse case results in diabetes.
One likely proof? Low-carb diets don't induce hunger, indicating cells are being fed from internal stores. Internal food (fast) versus external food are roughly the same from a hunger perspective. And if that internal food is inhibited, more hunger, more eating. More proof: fasting is relatively easy once the body adjusts. Hunger goes away.
This book reviews all the key diet and obesity research and their associated strengths, weaknesses, and contradictions. You will likely be convinced after reading it, and learn a ton about health, science and human nature. One strikingly obvious lesson- good science, and good scientists, don't engage in the self-promotion and pet-theory mongering that, unfortunately, seem to be noticed by media and government and become public policy. The second- public policy and the status quo have a huge influence on the beliefs and outlooks of a research community.
My personal epiphany was thinking about eating as cellular nutrition, and thinking about fat stores as important energy stores, not unwanted side effects of eating. A lot of studies in the book show convincingly show hunger is cellular-need driven- both fuel and nutrients- and this opens up important new perspectives.
A few other influences on the current mess outlined nicely in the book through copious reviews of studies:
1) When you remove fats, you add carbs. You need to eat something, right? Michael Pollan raises this point nicely as well in "In Defence of Food"- when you remove something, consider what replaces it.
2) much research that showed higher fat leading to higher disease ignored the prevalence of higher refined carbs. This was the switch all interpretations turn on, and without controlling for it, renders the low-fat diet conclusions reached by these studies as unsupportable and downright dangerous.
3) the assumption that fat was more fattening due to being calorie dense (9 calories versus 4 for carbs and proteins) is absolutely wrong. This was an important secondary influence on pushing low fat diets.
Sadly, this was all known 50 years ago, and ignored due to cholesterol and fat and other red herrings. Once fat was the demon, carbs had to be the angel. And what did we get? An obesity epidemic unlike any seen in history.
This book is beautifully written, and a great, engaging read. I found one awkward chapter in the middle- Paradoxes- but it made sense when I read later chapters. It was summarizing the research covered so far, and laying down the hypothesis for the remainder of the book.
Read this book. It might save your life.
 Based on False Premises: What "Obesity Epidemic"? February 25, 2010
kbrigan (Sacramento, CA)
0 out of 12 found this review helpful
This book presupposes that an "obesity epidemic" actually exists, and offers no proof other than hysterical anecdote and emotional appeals. The bell curve still shows that same distribution it always has. It's shifted slightly upwards (an increase of merely 7 pounds for the average person) because of the general aging of the population. And, all this at the same time life expectancy and overall quality of life have been INCREASING!!!!
Start here: [...]
Eye opening book February 21, 2010
Cate T.
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
As a type 1 diabetic, the information in this book rung true to me. When I try and cover high carb food with a lot of insulin I gain weight and don't feel my best. I like sharing this book with others though because it shows that not just diabetics, but many people, will benefit from giving up the high carb food. This book is very long and very scientific but it will open your eyes to all the bad science and greed that contributed to the now widespread belief that a low fat diet is the way to go. One of my favorite parts of the book is it attacks and demolishes the belief that people would't be fat any more if they simply exercised more and ate less. When I look around at any cafeteria there's no correlation between how heavy people are and how much they eat. This book will show you that people are heavier because they simply have a lower tolerance to the toxic effects of high insulin levels. Years of research went into writing this book and it inspired me to learn even more about diet and how the human body works.
OMG, we've been bamboozled February 14, 2010
Parent (Calif., USA)
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
I've read the book through and am starting in on a second read with a highlighter and post-its. OMG. I've been trying to follow the government's nutrition recommendations for years. In addition, at times I've been vegetarian, followed Zone briefly, and find that in my 40s, more animal protein and fewer carbs has helped me continue maintaining my healthy weight. But eat fat -- only "healthy" oils in moderation. Eat saturated fat -- never, never. Now I read this. What the heck?!
I have a science background and have been interested in nutrition for two decades. This is a ground-breaking book that integrates all the relevant sciences to tell the whole story. This is like a "human body" owners handbook as it relates to macro-nutrition. It could save your life. I'm sold on it but not without first wrestling with my inner demons and everything I've been told through public health messages for the past 30 years.
It is an engaging science story with ample citations and a human backstory. It explains what's really known (and not known) about how to avoid diseases of aging and live a long life, and how to maintain a healthy weight.
I am so glad I found this book. I think it will save my husband from topping 300 pounds and reduce our chances at cancer or stroke. I may buy copies to give to all my friends and family at the holidays. Definitely read this book. Buy a copy, so you can mark in it as you read it. It could change your life.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 261
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