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Good Calories, Bad Calories |  | Author: Gary Taubes
Publisher: Knopf
Category: Book
List Price: $27.95
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Rating:  288 reviews
Sales Rank: 704112
Format: Bargain Price
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Pages: 640
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2
Dimensions (in): 9.5 x 6.6 x 1.5
Dewey Decimal Number: 613.283
Publication Date: September 25, 2007
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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 288
 Most complete book on food ever September 1, 2010
A. Smith (Alaska)
This book made clear for me everything I'd ever been curious about the effects of food on the human body.
Excellent August 21, 2010
Kasha
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
So well written and interesting, this book is entirely engrossing. Compelling arguments backed by both critical hypthoses and evidence, this book really altered how I look at food and most importantly, got me to question the "obvious" notions about food I'd grown up with. I've totally turned my diet around and this book was the catalyst. I feel so much better and am truly just relieved to be off of the insulin yo-yo.
Comments of a Medical Researcher August 16, 2010
B Allen MD
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
Taubes' work is distinctive in that he reports the history that shaped nutritional beliefs in the USA. The signal message is there was a major misdirection of dietary recommendations coming from professional organizations along with the federal government. For the most part the data, which checks out upon review, leads the reader to conclusions supported by recent scientific investigations. Where he gives a personal opinion, he clearly identifies it as such. The work is devoid of any commercial promotion or program promotion; thus it serves the purpose of enabling the reader to comprehend underlieing basics without entrepreneural bias.
Because the book ranges over a number of different domains, the problem of disciplinary constraint does not appear. Anyone interested in nutrition from almost any perspective would have his knowledge expanded. Equally or more influential than science-of-the-day was the politics-of-the-time and those individuals who played pivotal roles - something missing in other works on the same general topic.
Coverage of the relevant investigations, science findings, and investigators themselves is at an 'intelligent lay level'. Complicated medical and nutritional concepts are clearly set out in 'plain English'.
This is a foundational work that should be required reading for the serious student of nutrition.
Very educational and enlightening. August 15, 2010
Tina Whitney (Portland Oregon)
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
If you are the slightest bit concerned about what you eat, the nutritional value of your food or just curious about the overwhelming rise of obesity and other diseases, you must read this book. It has changed my way of thinking and consuming food.
Kindle edition is NOT published by Anchor August 10, 2010
Steve Brecher
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I had read the hardcover published by Knopf in 2007, and wanted to read the "Afterword to the Anchor [paperback] edition." The Kindle edition is described as published by Anchor, so I ordered and downloaded it. It's the original Knopf edition, without the new Afterword. I should have noticed that the publication date of the Kindle edition is given as 2007, not 2008.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 288
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