Good Calories, Bad Calories: Fats, Carbs, and the Controversial Science of Diet and Health

Good Calories, Bad Calories - the book every Instagram Fitness Professional will never read *eye roll*  "If I have to deal with seeing one more post explaining how it's just calories in versus calories out, I'mma hurt someone!"  This book clearly just wants to go against social media mainstream nutrition advice in order to be counterculture!  Oh...you mean this book was published three years BEFORE Instagram was ever released?  Well then...

First things first:  I really dislike Taubes writing style as his voice is constantly trying to argue and persuade - the narrative comes off "soap box"-ish when it doesn't need to.  I'm not one for preachy material, but the thing is...if you look past HOW he writes things and directly at WHAT he is writing, it begs further exploration.  That's what kept me going.

His backstory of how we got to our current predicament is broken into two parts: "The Fat-Cholesterol Hypothesis" and "The Carbohydrate Hypothesis".  Although it is rather over-explained in my opinion, it does a great job at highlighting both the bias in past reporting (read: bad science) AND the spin from media attention/publication (read: follow the money).  It sets the rest of the book up...like he just completed all the edge and corner pieces to a jigsaw.

The real puzzle is what to do after a long-held belief has been debunked...?  Namely, you start looking for the opposite information.  He finds and explains that in Part Three "Obesity and the Regulation of Weight" where some of the preachy writing style starts to diminish.  He gets much better at stating findings rather than 'proving facts'...and this is where the book starts to shine most!

Overall, I'm hoping anyone who is looking to understand more truth about nutrition and diet as it relates to human health...reads this book early on in that journey.

I bought the book because the title sounded really interesting to me. Not knowing exactly what I could expect, I was very suprised that it was that scientific. I expected something more broad and general to be honest. But nevertheless, I devoured it during my vacation. 

The book is divided in two major parts. In the first part, the author challenges the hypothesis that dietary fat is responsible for heart disease. In the second part, the brings up the idea that overeating and little to no exercise is causing obesity.

The first part is by far the easier read. The author shows the growing misinformation regarding dietary fat (aka cholesterol), and heart disease. His explanation for obesity, diabetes etc. is strictly tied to the amount of refined starches and sugars a certain population consumes. 

He shows that there is a correlation between carbs and triglycerides and HDL. He points out that a low carb diet tends to raise HDL, and will therefor bring triglycerides into line.

Then, in the second part, Taubes says that the idea of calorie in, calorie out is correct, but it does not explain the cause of obesity. Taubes explanation is that the obese suffer from a type of insulin resistance. Muscles are insulin resistant while fat cells remain sensitive to insulin.

Cutting carbs brings down insulin levels, so a lower carb diet - in theory - should help an obese person getting healthier.

The book itself is very well written. Although it is very scientific, I never had the feeling that I was bored. I would absolutely recommend this book to everyone who is interested in the scientific side of nutrition. 

Good Calories Bad Calories

I loved reading this book. As a fanatic CrosssFit diatery practitioner for almost 8 years I really enjoyed soaking in information provided by this book. I knew some of the general ideas and concepts although width and depth of the knowledge and resources provided is brilliant. I still could find a lot of benefits by reading about the practical examples and evolution of different opinions and dietary approaches. For a laik, this book offers tons of information that could be used immediately on a day to day basis although it is going to be hard reading and a lot of searching. Also for a professional it is an awesome source of deep connections and backstories of principles and lies the public was fed by, for tens of years.

The general idea of the book could be expressed by quote of H.L. Mencken- also cited in the book- “There is always an easy solution to every human problem- neat, plausible and wrong”.

Part I is entitled “The FatCholesterol Hypothesis” and describes how we came to believe that heart disease is caused by the effect of dietary fat and particularly saturated fat on the cholesterol in our blood. It evaluates the evidence to support that hypothesis.
I was surprised and pleased by new points of view Gary Taubes offered in this title.
 Author suggests that frequency of coronary disease was raised not only by change of diet at the start of 20th century, but also by evolution of medical skills and technology which made diagnosis much more precise and shifted medical focus this way. 
Before, a lot of people did not live long enough to get a chance to get coronary disease. Malnutrition and infections were two main causes of deaths. When this was resolved by science, coronary diseases started to be the reason number one.

I really appreciate the way the author describes every problem. Offering a look into the history and evolution of false opinions about fat consumption and its connection to high cholesterol and heart diseases gives the reader a chance to understand what people believe and why they believe it to another level.
As for a coach it provides me a backstory to explain what I recommend much deeply and make my arguments much stronger.

What I considered very interesting was part about how consumption of different ratios of saturated or unsaturated fat could  influence cellular health in general. 

Also, what I found very beneficial is the comparison of medical vs. diet research methods and its explanation.
Seven country study and one of its results known also as a French paradox is a perfect example of how not to do things and why there were decades of public health decline under influence of incorrect information and opinions considered to be true.



 

Next, the book describes the history of the carbohydrate hypothesis of chronic disease, beginning in the nineteenth century. It then discusses in some detail the science that has evolved since the 1960s to support this hypothesis, and how this evidence was interpreted once public-health authorities established the fat-cholesterol hypothesis as conventional wisdom.
For me personally, one of the most interesting things that really opened my eyes was the description of the connection between low cholesterol levels and colon cancer( other types of cancer were also mentioned.
As a history lover I enjoyed the part where the author describes the evolution of “carb theory” and the really low incidence of civilization diseases and cancer among native tribes and populations not connected to modern civilization. Very useful part was description and data about development of these diseases as these studied groups were becoming more and more “civilized”.
Also spreading of white rice and white flour and sugar and its impact on health was pretty great explained and proved.
There is a suggestion by the author, which is widely accepted, that those factors of diet and lifestyle that cause us to fatten excessively are also the primary environmental factors in the cause of all of the chronic diseases of civilization.
The part named “Obesity and the Regulation of Weight,” discusses the competing hypotheses why we get fat and how is it happening..
Author suggests it is very questionable to claim that we get fat because of calories in and calories out disbalances. It does not explain any observations and obtained data about obesity. The key factor suggested by the author is calorie quality, compared to quantity. Body hormonal response and its way of dealing with high GI carbs is the reason why the population lies in the middle of health and health care crisis.

What a book. To be honnest, even though I knew Gary Taubes from differents lectures and articles, I didn't really expected all this content from this book.

It really is a goldmine of informations, but two specific topics were particularly eye opening to me : the long and incredible story behind the fat conspiracy, and the final take on energy distribution dysfonction.

First, the fat conspiracy. As CrossFit Trainer, we are used to use quite a high degree of skepticism toward conventional wisdom.  With time, this is something I've been accustomed to and I feel like each debate, to not say fight, prepared me better for the next episode. However, something I always found hard to argue against when debating with people hardly defending the "fat = bad" theory, was the following belief :
=> Scientific knowledge is notorious and entirely trustfull, hence everybody is aware of it and trusts it
=> if an idea or theory has clearly been disproved by science, everybody knows it
=> The scientific conspiracy is then impossible

Before this book, and even though I was profondly convinced that the state of scientific knowledge is not correlated with conventionel widsom, I was not able to have a clear picture in my head as to why. From now on, the scientist bias, his will to prove his point rather than establish the truth, and conflits of interest are like the missing piece of the puzzle. Like Matthieu, I'll probably need to read it again many times to really understand all the other reasons that lead us to this situation, most notably the cultural context in which it all happened that favored such a drift.


Second, the energy distribution dysfonction. Again going back into my past, I remember learning morphotypes at the university to define different bodys with different fat distribution and rate of accumulation. Then, the morphotype got depicted  as we talked about metabolism, being faster, or slower, which gave us a systemic understanding as to why different people would express different body types. With those knowledges, I felt like I had the "What" and the "Why". The theory of energy distribution dysfonction seems to provide the "how". After decrypting a list of nutrition logs from overweight clients myself, that overeating wasn't the cause of obesity was obvious. That it was the opposite was not something I would think of before this book, but I can totally see it now.  

Even though the theory applies at the cellular level, it totally makes sense to me at the very systemic & coaching level. We need to treat the cause, not the consequence. What I'll also have to explore on the field, is at the opposite end of the spectrum of morphtypes : hardgainers that pile on calories without gaining any significant weight. Would it be that they are eating to few because they are underweight instead of the opposite ? Of course, the question would be somehow similar from a macroview because we are talking about weight gain/loss but very different at the same time because two differents cell types would be highlighted : the fat cell for the obese person versus the muscle cell for the hardgainer.

Of course, this question diverges from the more crucial battle against obesity and metabolic disease, but if it applied on both ends of the spectrum, this theory would certainly be strenghtened.

First of all....if you are looking for a quick read, this is probably not the book you're looking for. However, it is a necessary read if you are working in the fitness and wellness world. This book identifies the mainstream misconceptions that we, as Coaches, deal with literally everyday we step in front of our clients. 

Although our clients will most likely give us the benefit of the doubt initially, as it relates to nutrition, in order to change a mindset that has been cultivated over years of following a false narrative, it's vital that we have science and doctors who have studied this and we can refer them to so they can see for themselves that we do in fact understand what we are talking about. 

Gary does a great job at addressing these issues and breaking down exactly why our clients should take them so seriously. He breaks it down from a physiological standpoint, talking about insulin levels and what refined carbohydrates can do to those levels and the adverse conditions that will result if we don't pay attention. The unfortunate truth is that most of our clients are experiencing the exact results that he speaks about so our clients will most likely believe us. The biggest pushback we get with our clients is the fact that fat doesn't make you fat. This is especially apparent in our older population who have heard this for the past three or four decades. 

The biggest way we have worked to combat this is doing exactly what Taubes suggested, provide the science as to why this isn't the case. We have a library of Nutrition books that our Nutrition Coach loans out to those who want to do their own research and we've found that once they come back, they are ready to make some changes and at least have an open mind as they start their journey. 

It’s hard to believe this book is 13 years old. It’s even harder to believe that there is still a struggle with the science it presents. We’ve all watched as low fat eating had a moment of popularity. Then the pendulum swung in the opposite direction as manufactured “meat” and veganism became fashionable once again. Throughout these opposite trends, “authorities” have continued to cite calories in/calories out as the biggest factor for weight loss and eating a “balanced” diet as the hallmark of health. 

The fact is that popular nutrition advice is as changeable as high fashion and yet a fundamental dogma persists that allows those trends to gain a foothold. Taubes and those like him stand alone in pursuing the science behind the outcomes and recognizing the hormonal and metabolic effects of what we consume are much more intricate than the sheer volume. As Taubes points out, when it comes to nutrition, science and research rarely attempt to seek out the truth but rather suffer from a confirmation bias based on a long-standing belief that fat is bad and carbs. It doesn’t matter that this belief itself is founded on faulty science. 

This was my second read of the book and it was a good reminder that solid science is out there. As a coach my job is to understand it and to connect my clients with it so that they can see beyond the marketing of the diet industry and learn to think for themselves. 

Well, this was a loooong read... Did I like the book, was it worth it and would I recommend it? Do I now know which calories are good and which are not? Well, that depends...

The title sounds promising, and it is a good book, really comprehensive, detailed and full of kind of unbiased scientific discussions, facts and basically collection of probably the most of diet and obesity research in past 100 and so years. But is that something I wanted to read? No, it is not. A chapter starts, it gets interesting diving in to the topic and then it just goes about what author did what research when and then you get lost in lot of not so interesting references, then there is something interesting, some stuff you learn, then again 5 pages of references and so on. And at the end of a chapter there isn`t any kind of straightforward conclusion from the author. So, if you are not really involved in scientific research and can get your own conclusions based on what you research this book is not for you. Well at least most of the book. 

If you are a fitness professional who likes to get into diet and health research so you can get some background about the stuff you suggest to people you train parts of the books are a great reference and source of some interesting facts. Unfortunately, the chapters I would most recommend to coaches like me would be the on the most part the last 3 (and it took a lot of time and reading to get to there since I didn`t want to skip parts of the book no mater how uninteresting it became). Some really interesting stuff there when you pass half of the book (like page 325 about glucose/vitamin C cellular uptake process, 387 to 389 about fatty acids and triglycerides or how Atkins was accused of malpractice) , and not so much history of scientific research about the topic, but real facts about how some stuff work in your body and how and why it could cause obesity problems.

And if you really don`t have lot of free time to spend on this book just have it in your library to do research on the specific topics in diferent chapters when you need some reference and read the epilogue to know what did Gary Taubes wanted you to learn. He did hell of a job writing this book, I`ll give him that, and I`m happy to have it at disposal if I`ll need something scientific on the diet/obesity topic.

The book has a critical misconception and myth the is spread around the world.

The fat is not so bad and actually is not only a calorie balance but in fact the type of calorie counts much more the its number. 

First we’ve heard the fats are bad  and make us obese and bring to us cardiovascular diseases (we all know the fats are not so profitable as high processed carbs, and being off top is a real reason for this myth of fat is bad).
In fact Fat has a low insulin response and there isn’t a direct relation with fat gains, but high processed carbohydrates has. The cause a spike of our endocrinological system and a disfunction of our blood sugar regulation the makes us fat, sick obese, and the fats  doesn't play as high trigger of insulin response despite its high calorie concentration. 
It was proved by studies the shown people away from a fat based diet getting fat in their body compositions.
All the high processed  carbs has sucrose and frutose (that are cheaper and makes food industry more profitable ) these calories are really bad and dangerous to us. The fructose is even more dangerous cz they act direct on our liver and we became obese and with an increases viceral fat and triglycerides, they are the bad calories the bring more fat accumulation and hormonal imbalances .
Due a high ingestion of refined  carbs we can face a increased chance of cancer and another diseases , bad calories from carbs has an import rule by multiplying bad cells related with chronic sicknesses. This is why some doctors has been recommended ketogenic diet (low carb high fat ingestion) as a cancer treatment supporter.  

A controversial subject is that exercises do not make us loose fat, actually I disagree in this point, but it was already told us in the book obesity code.

What makes us get fat is a failure of our hormonal regulation caused by high ingestion of bad calories , and it can be reversed by heath food (whole food) instead a use of drugs which only hide the symptoms but not the cause.

In Resume the book supports the CrossFit prescription that we can be fitter healthier  by eating  less carbs and specially natural foods (good calories).

I picked up “Good Calories bad calories” because I thought it would be a fun read. It turns out I was wrong, I learned a ton of new info but it was dry and repetitive. At its heart, Mr. Taubes would like you to know that too many carbohydrates will have an impact on your health. He would much rather see humans stick to proteins and fats. I can now appreciate how well researched the book is given the bibliography is 60 pages.

This book does an in depth coverage of study after study that supports the hypothesis. Insulin is listed as the metabolic factor that shifts our ability to burn fat instead of glucose as a fuel source. Ultimately, the two main things you can do to help become more insulin sensitive is exercise regularly and change your diet. If an individual is sticking to foods that don’t spike your insulin you will be better off. For example this would mean sticking to meals that are ample in both protein and fats. 

Before I read this book, I remember listening to a podcast hosted by Joe Rogan where Gary Taubes and Stephan Guyenet went head to head. It was the debate of a lifetime where low carb and low cal were both heavily discussed. I am fully aware that winning debates depends enormously on the debater and their verbal skills, poise, manipulation of the english language,, knowledge recall etc.. However, I do remember thinking they both had valid points. Despite Mr Guyenet arguable winning the debate, I still agree with Mr. Taubes that insulin does play a huge role in how the body metabolizes fat. I think of the analogy of trying to drive with your hand brake on. You can make a little headway but it would be much easier if the handbrake is off. The type of macronutrients we choose to put in our mouth plays a huge role in our body composition. Overall fat and protein have both proven to be favourable choices.

Good Calories, Bad Calories and Taubes' second book Why We Get Fat have been sitting on the shelf for about a decade and 2020 seemed like the perfect time to revisit them.

As many other commenters noted, Good Calories is a tough read. It's extremely dense and for someone without formal training and education in reading research it can be pretty overwhelming. 

Taubes' criticism of Ancel Keys and his "lipid hypothesis" seems well founded. After reading Rigor Mortis last month, the pitfalls of bias in scientific research are plentiful and once an idea starts gaining traction in the scientific community, or in this case also in public policy, it's hard to disabuse ourselves of its truth. "Common sense" for a long time told us that dietary fat would clog the arteries and make us fat and sick. Now it seems like that isn't the case.

I do think that the field of nutrition and the voices that have floated to the top in said field have made a lot of headway in the past ten years since both of Taubes' books were written. The assumption that it is purely carbohydrates and not calories that are leading to fat gain seems to be a bit reductionist and missing the forest for the trees. There are numerous metabolic ward studies that have shown high fat and high carbohydrate diets to be equivalent for weight loss when calories are equated. The problem with metabolic ward studies is that humans live in the real world and most people don't have personal chefs and someone there to monitor every thing they put in their mouths.

Regardless of where Taubes' books sit in the minds of nutrition researchers and cardiologists now, I think that World Class Fitness in 100 words was and still is the prescription that will get us back to fitness on a population level "Eat meat and vegetables, nuts and seeds, some fruit, little starch and no sugar. Keep intake to levels that will support exercise but not body fat." 

It's hard to overeat on whole, unprocessed foods and I don't know anyone who's followed that advice and been worse off for it.

Initially, I tried to read this book years ago. And let me tell you, it is heavy. I could not keep up and finish it so this time around I gave myself a lot more time and tried to chew through it chapter by chapter. And I am so glad I did. 

In this analysis I have tried to touch on the most important premises that Taubes brings us. First, food and nutrition are political. Throughout history we see that we are often advised things that are good for us but turn out to be catastrophic. From fats, saturated fats, vegetable fats, carbohydrates and everything in between. In addition, the world still lives on the fact that the number of calories eaten is the same number of calories lost.

I have been a CrossFit coach for 9 years and cannot count how many nutrition inquiries I have received. The most common questions are always how to lose weight and how to keep the weight off after losing it. And my answer is always the same - eat unprocessed foods in their original form and awaken your intrinsic feelings of satiety. Still, sometimes that advice doesn’t work. I’ve always wondered - how is it possible for someone to tell me they eat well, their food diary confirms that but they do not lose weight. It's clear to me now.

Optimal nutrition is only part of the equation. Taubes states through numerous studies that have investigated tribal people and communities who are not in touch with the modern world that all problems began to appear with the introduction of processed carbohydrates. In addition, our endocrine system responds very specifically to our body and we cannot expect all people from different climates to have the same hormonal reaction to food. And not only that, there is a possibility that our body is predisposed to gaining more fat deposits than anyone else.

So not only does our diet have to be “perfect” which is still a question of “What is perfect?”, but also our hormonal system needs to be in balance which is sometimes under our influence and sometimes we are genetically determined for some physiological response.

Sounds impossible? For some of us, it may be. Why do people who lose a lot of weight return to their original condition very easily? Because all the studies in Taubes' book indicate that a man with reduced calories than usual will still feel the same original hunger after losing x kilograms.

What have I learned that I can apply right away with my members? As a PN L1 coach I do not focus on strict diet plans and certain amounts of food but on small habits changes that each of us can bring into our lives. Changing eating habits, looking for patterns in stressful eating, and choosing unprocessed foods cooked in a delicious way is the only thing that works for my clients and this book just strengthen the position on the way I approach diet changes. 

Since food is a social experience for so many of us. The secret is not to tell people to just stop going to gatherings or not eat at all during big family lunches but to choose an option just a tad bit better than they are used to. This is exactly the attitude I liked in Taubes' book, this is not written as some great truth to be followed. The book is written as a collection of significant studies that challenge or question the current dogma that what all obese people need to do is eat less and move more.

This is a review of Good Calories Bad Calories by Gary
Taubes. I found the book to be a good read that debunks much conventional
wisdom about eating “healthy” and how not all calories are created equal. Taubes
uses current data as well as some really old studies to drive home his points about
cholesterol, obesity, cancer and Alzheimer’s (just to name a few!) which are
very well presented.

As someone who grew up in the 80’s, it was common knowledge
that if you wanted to be healthy and get lean, you ate high carbohydrate,
medium protein and low fat. I genuinely thought that eating fat would make me
fat for the majority of my childhood. Same with salt increasing blood pressure
and saturated fat increasing cholesterol. If I could only go back and have my
younger self read this book! I definitely would have approached my diet much
differently.

This was a very interesting read, even though it rehashed
some principles that I currently follow. Focusing on where your calories come
from, as well as eliminating processed foods, sugar and concentrating on
insulin levels is the way to be healthy and reduce bodyfat. I will recommend
this book to anyone I work with who is questioning healthy eating and wants to
get their eating on track!

The best portions of this book are the ones that discuss the prosteltizing by Keys and how he was able to sway such influential groups like the AHA towards his hypothesis that fat was the primary driver of heart disease. The fervor with which Keys promoted his hypothesis should be a red flag to any conscientious scientist as when one gets too attached to a belief, they are likely to close their mind to data/evidence that is contrary to their opinion. Granted, back then there wasn't great data to support either side of the argument - the rigor of the science just wasn't at the level it can be today.

While the historical aspects of this book are fascinating and informative, at this point in the time, many of the the scientific claims made by Taubes are not as clear cut as he claimed; there is an inherent risk of this with any book, as science is constantly developing our understanding of life. I will highlight a few here. The first is the claim that the primary driver of obesity is a result of fat accumulation from carbohydrates (and the corresponding insulin response), not total calories. Unfortunately, the data we have now does not support this. Even a study conducted by Taubes' own group (Hall et al., 2016) aimed to show increased fast loss in a low carbohydrate diet, but the results were equivocal. Beyond that, studies that control for protein content and total calories consistently show no difference in fat loss between low fat and low carbohydrate groups. The second claim which is not entirely supported is the claim that dietary saturated fat does not cause heart disease. Causality is hard to show in nutrition studies, but studies at high levels of intake (>16% of daily intake) show strong correlations between saturated fat and heart disease. In addition, population-level interventions that reduce saturated fat intake have shown reductions in heart disease mortality. So, to say saturated fat has no role is a bit premature. That being said, replacing saturated fat with refined carbohydrates did not result in improved cardiovascular outcomes, so it seems likely that levels of both must be controlled for optimal cardiovascular health.

There are more areas could be delved into and really that is what we need at this time. We now have many more studies than were available at the time Taubes wrote this book and from them we are seeing that the revealed nuances must be highlighted to accurately depict our current level of understanding.

 I wanted to read this book for a long time. When I saw it in book list recommended by CrossFit, it was a no brainer. 
Many times during the read I said to myself that Gary Taubes is really brave to go against the conventional wisdom. I like the way how he explains all the studies and hypotheses that presents the opinions from each side. Basically, he looks deep into the history of science of nutrition. He does not mind what the public opinion on the subject is. He is pragmatic and tries to go to the core of things. 
It is sad how for centuries, science was manipulated. And todays population is the victim of it all. When I was a child, my parents have always tried to eat healthy and have educated themselves in nutrition. I have memories of them talking about how its not healthy to eat too much fat, too much salt  because you will get heart attack or high blood pressure.  To this day it is difficult to convince them that carbohydrates are the real problem. Therefore I like that in the book there are many facts, and relatively simply explained studies, that I can discuss with them, or with members of our gym that have the same mindset. It is sad that the stigma „FAT IS BAD“ is very deeply rooted in peoples thinking. And it all started with one scientist (Ancel Keys) desperately holding onto his idea, even when his own research does not prove it. Imagine where the public health could be, if science wasn’t so corrupt.

As the book says, its not just how much calories you take in, it is what are those calories from. Maybe the most interesting to me, was the last part of the book, where the author describes how someone can be obese, and basically starving (at a level of single cell) at the same time. This is especially fascinating to me. Also I will be sure to educate my clients even more on what „starving“ does really mean and how it can look like. That nutrition deficiency is common problem and can happen to anyone that does not eat nutritious foods= good calories.
It all just makes so much sense, that it is hard to imagine that for all those years these facts were so misinterpreted.

I was excited to revisit the book, which has been in library for over 10 years now. It was originally recommended to me when I took my Level 1 CrossFit cert. I found the nutrition portion of the Level 1 to be eye opening. I wanted to read more, and this began a long love affair with reading about nutrition. This is still one of my favorites thanks to how thorough it is. For me, the most groundbreaking parts discussed the relationship between diet and cholesterol, between cholesterol and heart disease, and cholesterol lowering medicine and heart disease. When I was teenager, I was diagnose with high cholesterol by a cardiologist. They told me to stop eating food with cholesterol in it. I went on a cholesterol-free (aka fat free) diet for 6 months. At the next check back, my cholesterol had raised by 80 points. This rang alarm bells, and I was placed on medication for years. After my Level 1, and the following nutrition reading binge, I decided to stop taking the medicine and attempt to fix my cholesterol with diet alone. It worked. In retrospect, it seems obvious to me that it was the diet that raise my cholesterol. Given the research in the book, and the much research conducted since, it seems its conclusions should now be considered established. Yet, over a decade later, it is still going against the grain. Much like my own experience with diet, it all seems so obvious now. 

I remember when Good Calories, Bad Calories was first released. It was the next major nutrition piece I read after CrossFit Journal articles 15 (Nutrition - Avoiding Metabolic Derangement http://journal.crossfit.com/2003/11/cfj-issue-15-nutrition-avoidin.tpl) and Journal article 21 (The Zone). 

As an affiliate owner, the information presented in this book is thick and may be too much to recommend to clients. Taubes wrote a more “simple” version of this research in his follow up, Why We Get Fat. I have found this book to be a wonderful recommendation for clients who are stuck on:
Eating less calories will make them lose weight
Dietary fat is bad
Fat will make you fat

For a society where 40% of the population is obese, we have to keep pushing the message in our affiliates. Over the past ten years, I have seen individuals lose 20-60 pounds by the simple effort of removing the processed, sugar-laden loads from their diet. In a landscape where we are told that dieting is hard, Gary Taubes illustrates how simple and effective the effort can be. 

I found this book to be enlightening and also very validating. I have been working in nutrition for about 7 years now, and I am still shocked at times with the ways that standard nutrition recommendations (especially in medical settings) are still so archaic. Though, I suppose I shouldn't necessarily be shocked considering that amount of money to be made off of a sick population. 

I really appreciate the way that Taubes takes on one hypothesis at a time and is able to break it down through proving fallacies in the data, sharing historical background to help shed light on the mindsets and context of the time, and also posing data driven rebuttals for the counter argument - that high carbohydrate and low fat diets have actually led to the "diseases of civilization." I especially appreciated insights shared into the Tokelau Island Migration Study. That is not one I had heard of, and I look forward diving in deeper and sharing with my clients and community. 

I also found this book helpful in better understanding my own history of high cholesterol. When I was in college, training for endurance sports and eating a very high carbohydrate, vegetarian diet, my cholesterol and triglycerides where through the roof. Upon shifting to a more "paleo" diet significantly higher in animal products, cholesterol-rich foods, and saturated fats (against my doctor's recommendations), I not only felt better, but my cholesterol dropped substantially, and my triglycerides cut in half. 

I appreciate this book and plan to share with anyone who will listen.

I originally read Good Calories, Bad Calories when it was first released. I have also been a fan of Gary Taubes lectures for CrossFit and therefore I was happy to see it recommended earlier this year. I then took this opportunity to re-read and delve a little deeper into the book.

There are a few key points that underline the book and Gary Taubes  emerging hypothesis.

Number 1:

Debunking the myth that dietary fat, especially saturated fats cause disease and obesity. In fact he goes further to argue that fat is good for you, especially animal fats.

Number 2:

Instilling the idea that carbohydrates, especially sugar and refined grains are the cause of a high number of chronic illnesses.

Number 3:

There is an unfortunate confirmation bias and poor distribution of government funding for research. Alongside misinformation/interpretation of data being presented to the public.

The book begins looking at history of diet especially within the US and looking at how some of the mis-information could have been spread. He also highlights how some prominent scientists may have lead us down the path that dietary fat is bad for us.

When I first read the book I had a hard time accepting the narrative that a diet high in fat could be good for us, as it is ingrained in our society that “fat is bad”.

However the studies looking at populations such as the inuits who survive on an extremely high fat diet and in fact do very well on this diet really gave me some “food for thought”.

Nutrition is indeed an extremely complex area, it is also constantly evolving in the sense we have new discoveries daily on how what we eat or dont eat effects us.

The book is highly referenced and although there is some controversy regarding some of the referenced material, Taubes undoubtedly presents his ideas and concepts clearly.

After reading Good Calories, Bad Calories it lead me to become more open to the idea that fats may indeed be very beneficial and especially to look more carefully at a diet high in refined carbohydrates.

Good Calories, Bad Calories has been on my "to read" list for a number of years, so I was excited to see it come up as a recommended read by CrossFit!
On the surface this book can seem a little intimidating, let's face it, it's pretty chunky with small print and not many pictures to occupy some pages! Nevertheless, it is well worth the read if you have the time, diligence and interest in the topic. For health and fitness professionals, this is a MUST READ! Gary Taubes is an absolute truth seeker, as the back cover writes, he is a "relentless researcher"! This book could well be called "a brief history of human nutrition". Taubes uses recent as well as older relevant sources dated back to the 1800s, which are more important than ever in today's climate and chronic disease epidemic. 
Taubes does a great job of describing many of the metabolic processes that have been shown over the years to be scientifically factual, with the use of relevant and reliable sources. However, it's frustrating as a health professional to learn how these physiological processes and have been completely ignored or disregarded over the past 90 years. Once again, the corruption and greed at the top of the public health pyramid, is not only making it difficult for health professionals to recommend a diet to the patients and clients based on "good science" but worse, these dietary guidelines are incidentally guiding people towards a chronic health condition rather than a longer and healthier lifespan. 
If we cannot trust the scientists or public health advisers who knowingly turn a blind eye to the truth in order to satisfy their beliefs or hypothesis, maybe we should be listening to external researchers who are rigorously searching for the truth and not afraid to share what they find. Taubes puts a compelling argument forward with his carbohydrate hypothesis, surely it's only a matter of time before the powers at be start paying attention to this undeniable truth.

This book is jam packed with information of university textbook proportions. Gary Taubes pulls back the hood covering up a centuries worth of misinterpretation and misguided science in the world of nutrition.

As Richard Harris and Uffe Ravnskov have done in Rigor Mortis and The Cholesterol Myths, Taubes dispels misinterpretations and lies from proponents of the diet-heart hypothesis by using their own science to counter their conclusions and messages of fat free dieting.

I appreciated Taubes relentlessness in highlighting the technical science behind the carbohydrate hypothesis. He touches nearly every controversial subject in nutrition; general nutritional history, fibre, HDL/LDL/VLDL, sugar, cancer, Alzheimer's, and aging. He gives detailed historical accounts as to why society has become attached to certain nutritional dogma (i.e. fibre is essential, HDL = "good"/LDL = "bad") and makes us feel silly for not seeing through the bullshit (although, how could we without help from people like Taubes, Harris, and Ravnskov?).

For me, Part III: Obesity And The Regulation Of Weight (p.229), was particularly revealing. I have always had trouble wrapping my head around the paradox of the obese individual who lives at a caloric deficit and does not lose weight. Taubes helps us understand the different roles that hormones and the hypothalamus play in individuals of varying metabolic states. Additionally, the science that Taubes brings forth to describe a state of "starvation" at the cellular level in obese individuals helps us to reconcile the idea of lethargy and hunger as an effect and not the cause of obesity. It can sometimes be too easy for us to think that someone needs to "eat less and exercise more" in order to lose weight. Maybe, as coaches, this idea will help us to think twice and dig further into the real cause when helping our clients and athletes with their fitness & health goals.

After reading the book, I reflected on the fact that it was published in 2007 as I read Michael Pollan's quote on the cover "A vitally important book, destined to change the way we think about food." Again I am astonished and thankful for Coach Glassman shoving these books into our faces and forcing us to do some thinking. Everyone, including myself, should have read this book 13 years ago.

As a trainer, I have more confidence after reading this book as it reaffirms the effectiveness of CrossFit's nutritional prescription. 

This book, let me think about not only about Carb, Fat, or another nutrition topic, but also just general human rights. For almost 30 years, I have been pushed to see only one side by our culture. As a Korean, I grew up hearing carbs and vegetables are good for our health. And meat and fat are bad for our health. It's for 30 years! For someone like my mother, it's almost 70 years. It scares me. Carbs and Vegi are good, and meat and fat are bad. Those are just a fraction of the complete information. And it cannot be judged as good or bad by someone else. I believe every individual has a right to make a decision by him or herself. In order to do that, we all need to be able to get all the information freely without a bias filter. After making a decision, the after-effect is each individual's responsibility.  I have seen lots of interesting criticism about this book and someone who shows the contrary evidence about this book. But that is not important to me. To me, this book tries to open people's eyes and ears and bring the topic which might have been hidden by someone for a long time to the table. It allows us to look at another side with lots of evidence and giving us an opportunity to expand our options to choose. 

This book covered it all, and left no stone unturned. The author uncovered and referenced so many tests, so many studies, so many reports and so much science! I’m still trying to decide this cleared up some unanswered questions or made it even more confusing. .. nevertheless there most definitely are a lot of takeaways, incredibly interesting facts , and a lot of new words now a part of my vocabulary, including corpulent and Salubrious!

Below some highlights, comments and rhetorical questions 

Part one
-From 1910-1950 was surprised to see such a large increase in deaths caused by heart Cardiovascular disease
-1948 US congress passed the National Heart ACT and the national heart institute was born and millions of $$ poured into research for Americans no 1 killer 
-interesting read on the history of food. Rice was an exotic item. Pasta is Italian. Corn for livestock. And reflecting on how we use and eat these today.
-This is kinda scary.. “some of the most reliable facts about the diet heart hypothesis have been consistently ignored by public health authorities because they complicated the message, and the least reliable findings were adopted because they didn’t ”!  - on the cholesterol topic
-A good reminder - molecules of fat = triglycerides   Saturated fats = tend to raise cholesterol. Unsaturated fats = lower cholesterol 
-Results of the seven countries study first to declare a new idea that monounsaturated fats protected against heart disease and was the genesis of the Mediterranean diet. 
-Minnesota trial - cholesterol lowered BUT was associated with higher heart disease .. wHAT!!.. and all results were not published for 16 years.. again WHAT!
-Every 3 years the American heart association revised the fat intake to less and less each revision
-“Dietary goals” aturning point in American diet goals. Backed by the American federal government and referred to as “gospel “
-How crazy is it that a trial result with .2 % improvement that men who took cholestyramine “would live through the next decade” as a win?!

Part Two
-Really appreciated the history lessons on the refining process of white flour and sugar. And of the affordability or lack thereof prior to the mid nineteenth century and hence the introduction to all the good things biscuits , cakes , confectionary , cakes ... and soft drinks!!  And the discovery and importance of vitamins to our health 
-Fat the cause of diabetes.. excuse me!?
-more ammunition towards the classic distribution of diseases of civilizations caused mostly in part due to refined carbohydrates , sugar, white flour white rice and lack of fiber . Kudos to Cleave who set the path and to Burkett who took it and ran with it— yet adding fiber was proven to not have any beneficial effects on heart disease , breast and colon cancer ... so then back to cleaves hypothesis 

Part Three
-The stats on overweight children were as expected but still sting when reading. Ages 6-12 doubled between 1980-2000 and tripled ages 11-19. Based on BMI
-Is a calorie a calorie? That those on carbohydrate restricted high calorie diets are losing more weight than those on semi starvation balanced diet.
-Well, a carbohydrate restricted diet is in fact disguised as a calorie reduced diet.
-A history glimpse into atkins and keto diets and the science and reports behind them
-Um pardon me?  Eating carbs make us hungry ?  Eat nothing or eating just fat and protein and we won’t feel hunger??  This was tested and reported!

So the question still begs, Eat more carbs. Eat more fat. Do calories matter???  What should we eat to prevent disease? What should we eat to be healthy? What should I feed my children? How should my children feed their children?

The Punch line ... eat a balanced diet in moderation, or is it?!
These historical turning points changed the course of nutrition in the nineteen century:
1 agriculture that changed diets from carb poor to carb rich
2 increase in refined carbs
3 increase in fructose 

What changes are yet to come that continue to alter the future of our health?This book was written in 2007 and was five years in the making is now 13 years old.  Onwards to more studies, more science and a hope for factual, timely and accurate findings. 

 For me, this is not an easy reading and a month is not enough time to digest all that information the book provides. As I went through the chapters, I was very pleased to find out that what Taubes says in the book is very similar to what we teach in Level 1 Seminar. I also realized that we merely scratch the surface of the matter in L1. 

 I was particularly interested in the part that expending more energy and consume less is not a long term solution to weight loss. Before the nutrition lecture in my L1, I used to believe the only way to lose fat is to burn more calories than you take. Calorie in and calorie out. And calorie surplus for bulking and calorie deficit for cutting is bible. In the Level 1 seminar, I learned for the first time hormonal balance is more important than simple math of calories. What we eat is more important than how much we eat and how much we burn. I am glad Taube's book fortifies that.

 I was born and raised in a country where simple carbohydrates like white rice take huge portion of a meal and proteins and fats have lesser place. My wife's family has historically high cholesterol levels and my father in law has been avoiding eating red meat and fatty food like egg yolk for a long time as he believes they would raise the cholesterol level high. We sat down at the dinner table together on Lunar New Year Day here in Korea with huge festive food full of starch. There he said his cholesterol level's still high no matter how careful he is to avoid those fatty food. I said it is more down to genetic reasons than food and suggested him to actually eat more meat and fatty food and eat less carbs. He wouldn't believe. I gave him a perfect case study that I read in Taube's book. Perfect herbivores like rabbits can develop high cholesterol  that are produced in their body itself. He was shocked. As I went on about what he should be eating and avoiding, he asked me "Some fruit? Aren't they full of vitamins and fibers?" Again I explained how high fructose can destroy the hormonal balance by triggering the insulin secretion. And high fiber diet-this is new information I picked in the book-could work against hormonal homeostasis as they are often packed with carbohydrates. He was speechless. 

 Hopefully my little lecture at the dinner helped bring small changes in his eating habit and I wish I could do that to my clients as well. I still need some time to stomach this book and I am sure I will refer to this book again and again. 
 

Johnny

This book was a challenge to tackle. Like I have seen others express, my goal was to get through and just try to take in as much as possible. I absolutely have plans on going back and rereading this in the future. It seems to be a book you could read over and over again and still learn something new and pick up on new insights. 

Nutrition as a book topic for me tends to be more out of obligation. However, I am happy to for the push to read this because I found genuine enjoyment in parts of the book. The knowledge and insights provided are incredible, but what I enjoyed most was learning the journey of how the policies came to be. For me, it was very interesting to read on how such a prominent theory could rise into common acceptance, with so many obvious pitfalls. It is a stark reminder of how disadvantages the general population is in knowing the truth behind nutrition and a great reminder of how we need to do our part to spread the truth!

I told a coach at my gym yesterday that this book should be required reading for all coaches who work with people in nutrition. Like many of my colleagues here, this book had been on my reading list for years, so thank you CrossFit for giving me the push to finally read it. I appreciated learning more about this topic from a historical perspective (it was so interesting to read about all the research that has been done in the past that rarely sees the light of day, and also, how certain interests restrict this research from being seen by the masses). The chapters on cholesterol were helpful in that they reinforced last month's reading (The Cholesterol Myth), but what I found really useful was the content related to hyperinsulinemia and weight loss. This book helped me better understand why SOME diets will never work, and also why many of our clients have been so frustrated in the past when they have attempted to lose weight. Again, science has made the error of focusing on correlation not causation.  As a nutrition coach myself, I will use this information to help my clients achieve better and more permanent outcomes. 

I have never read a book as well researched as what I found 'Good Calories Bad Calories'. 
Taubes' investigation dismantles, piece by piece, the evolution of the diet heart principles and the catastrophic retribution the western world has had to face by placing our trust in it.

I applaud Gary Taubes  for the subjective detail in which he delivered his message. I found there to be no hidden agenda or pre ordained motive to his writings. Just sincere summarisation of each reference he used. 

No fluff, just facts.

This intriguing read inadvertently reinforces the importance of 'real' food. Good Calories equals real/Bad Calories equals processed/refined or not real. 

What left me slightly bitter at the end of this book was that all the answers to the eating habits that help us avoid chronic illness have been with us since the dawn of science. The lost lives through diet and health misinformation over the last 60 years will never be measured.  

This bitterness and betrayal we have all been subject to should inspire us all to not waste another minute to right the wrongs of the past.

How? One family member, friend and loved one at a time.

There is so much ground covered in the book. It is deserving of another one or two reads. Taubes has pulled together a mountain of research, but I must admit that after reading Rigor Mortis, I found myself self-editing and dismissing information that was based on animal studies, epidemiological studies or research older than 10 years. This reflects that the more I read, the more skeptical I am becoming, which is a good thing. I think it is important to recognize that this work is a journalistic investigation, rather than a scientific one. There are compelling historical arguments presented, however the challenge with looking back is that there must be quite a bit of detective work required to fill in the blanks. On numerous times I had to remind myself that the detective work is not necessarily balanced, and as the author states himself, he is presenting a case to the jury…

“By critically examining the research that led to the prevailing wisdom of nutrition and health, this book may appear to be one-sided, but only in that it presents a side that is not often voiced publicly. Since the 1970s, the belief that saturated fat causes heart disease and perhaps other chronic diseases has been justified by a series of expert reports – from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Surgeon General’s Office, the National Academy of Sciences and the Department of Health in the U.K., among others. These reports present the evidence in support of this diet-heart hypothesis and mostly omit the evidence in contradiction. This makes for a very compelling case, but it is not how science is best served. It is a technique used to its greatest advantage by trial lawyers, who assume correctly that the most persuasive case to a jury is one that presents only one side of a story. The legal system, however, assures that judge and jury hear both sides by requiring the presence of competing attorneys to present the other side. “

It is a great reminder that we cannot escape our own biases, but we can recognize when they are in play. Notwithstanding the one-sidedness of this book, I found it incredible valuable. There were three specific takeaways for me, in addition to the other comments:

1. The section on glycation continued to fill in some blanks in terms of how high carb diets can lead to atherosclerosis. Oxidation was touched on in “Cholesterol Myths” and it is starting to emerge as a major area of interest for me.  From Taubes ...

“The term glycation refers only to this initial step, a sugar molecule attaching to a protein, and this part of the process is reversible—if blood-sugar levels are low enough, the sugar and protein will disengage, and no damage will be done. If blood sugar is elevated, however, then the process of forming an advanced glycation end-product will move forward. The protein and its accompanying glycated sugars will undergo a series of reactions and rearrangements until the process culminates in the convoluted form of an advanced glycation end-product … AGEs and the glycation process also appear to play at least one critical role directly in heart disease, by causing the oxidation of LDL particles and so causing the LDL and its accompanying cholesterol to become trapped in the artery wall, which is an early step in the atherosclerotic process. Oxidized LDL also appears to be resistant to removal from the circulation by the normal mechanisms, which would also serve to increase the LDL levels in the blood. As it turns out, LDL is particularly susceptible to oxidation by reactive oxygen species and to glycation. In this case, both the protein portion and the lipid portion (the cholesterol and the fats) of the lipoprotein are susceptible. These oxidized LDL particles appear to be “markedly elevated” in both diabetics and in nondiabetics with atherosclerosis, and are particularly likely to be found in the atherosclerotic lesions themselves.”

I was left wondering if AGE production in relation to refined carbs differed between species depending on where they sat on the herbivore to carnivore continuum? Specifically, do herbivores produce AGE when eating high carb diets?

2. The book highlighted just how far ahead of the curve CrossFit has been in educating the world on the importance of insulin management. The following line from Taubes would have been perfectly in place opening our Nutrition lecture on the L1 seminar 10 years ago …
“Insulin, in short, is the one hormone that serves to coordinate and regulate everything having to do with the storage and use of nutrients and thus the maintenance of homeostasis and, in a word, life. It’s all these aspects of homeostatic regulatory systems—in particular, carbohydrate and fat metabolism, and kidney and liver functions —that are malfunctioning in the cluster of metabolic abnormalities associated with metabolic syndrome and with the chronic diseases of civilization.”

The impact of insulin on chronic disease is non-controversial, but the the link that refined carbohydrate leads to insulin resistance seems to be the point of push back within the world of nutrition. 

“One question that will be addressed in the coming chapters is why medical investigators and public-health authorities, like Landsberg, will accept the effects of insulin on chronic diseases as real and potentially of great significance, and yet inevitably interpret their evidence in ways that say nothing about the unique ability of refined and easily digestible carbohydrates to chronically elevate insulin levels. This is the dilemma that haunts the past fifty years of nutrition research, and it is critical to the evolution of the science of metabolic syndrome.”
          
3. The most interesting proposition in the book for me is the concept that obesity is a symptom of an underlying disorder and that caloric restriction attempts to treat the symptoms of obesity, but doesn't necessarily address the root cause. The implication is that lean people are active because they are lean and fat people inactive because they are fat. The conventional thinking is the opposite, that lean people are lean because they are active and fat people fat because they are inactive. The author presents a compelling case that obesity is an issue of storage of energy, and activity is determined by the ability to make energy available through mobilization. 

“When Rony discussed positive energy balance, he compared the situation with what happens in growing children. “The caloric balance is known to be positive in growing children,” he observed. But children do not grow because they eat voraciously; rather, they eat voraciously because they are growing. They require the excess calories to satisfy the requirements of growth; the result is positive energy balance. The growth is induced by hormones and, in particular, by growth hormone. This is the same path of cause and effect that would be taken by anyone who is driven to put on fat by a metabolic or hormonal disorder. The disorder will cause the excess growth—horizontal, in effect, rather than vertical. For every calorie stored as fat or lean tissue, the body will require that an extra calorie either be consumed or conserved. As a result, anyone driven to put on fat by such a metabolic or hormonal defect would be driven to excessive eating, physical inactivity, or some combination.”

This seems to be a clear explanation for what I think is one of Coach Glassman’s most profound quotes … “you can’t out-train a shitty diet”.  Calorie surplus just doesn’t stack up as a reasonable explanation for weight gain, nor calorie deficit for weight loss. Metabolism is key.

Overall, a fascinating, but very long read! 

My favorite line from the book … “it is the quality of the calories consumed that regulates weight, and the quantity—more calories consumed than expended—is a secondary phenomenon”

WOW, to say there is a lot of information to unpack in this book would be an understatement. My goal upon reading it was to just read it and not try to digest everything this time through. I do not have a hard science background, so I wanted to just get the information into my head, and really feel that I will need to go back through this book again to start to pick up on more of the information. 

There was something that I found to be disheartening from much of the status quo science that I saw examples of numerous times in the book. Scientists wanted their hypothesis to be true, and so they pushed the standards and their advice even without the data to support that. They adamantly opposed research to the contrary. It’s like they wanted something to be true so much that they figured, well we just haven’t found the right research to support this, but it has to be true so we will still recommend it that seemed to be the case for dietary fat and cholesterol and continues to be. There were outspoken people and there was an epidemic, and people wanted an answer. Once that answer was given they didn’t want to admit they were wrong, so we continued to push bad information out, and fight against research that is counter. Just because you want something to be true, doesn’t make it so, and if we are truly concerned with the truth, we have to be open to all research.

as I was thinking about this post. I went back through some highlights I made, in the book, and it just reminded me how much information is in this book. I really need to read this book again and continue to use this as a resource. Thanks for starting this book club. I really enjoy seeing all the responses and look forward to going back through this book to see how much more I can pick up from it.

Although more dense than the previous ones, this book does the same as the other readings: they lead us to understand how science has been flawed and fickle in the face of such important issues, making us realize that not all truth can be absolute and that we can
and should question.
For me, it was important to understand the author's thesis and notice how he studied, researched, inquired and was supported by other researchers. The book not only led me to question our habits but also to open my eyes to issues of health, chronic diseases, obesity and how studying nutrition can be very complex.

This was a lot of information to digest in one read. I’ve highlighted a lot of parts to go back and reread as some of the topics are fairly new to me. For example, the role of the hypothalamus in our brain and how it is involved with our appetite. 

I like the order the books presents the information and how well it concludes with the focus on the role of insulin and the effects of hyperinsulinemia. Although there were some topics that were dense, I felt there was a nice summary of the information towards the end of chapter in layman terms to understand clearer what was written. 

At some point, I paused and thought what could be the easiest way to sum up this information, specifically the effects of hyperinsulinemia and realized how well the L1 nutrition lectures provides the right amount of information to understand the importance of this state, also the best way to reverse this state. 

I now question, would a diet that restricts all carbs, including fruit and vegetables, be the best diet for obese and type 2 diabetics? As extreme as it sounds, taken the situation they are in maybe they need an extreme change. 

While I have heard of this book for years, I never actually tackled it. I thought maybe it was going to be too above me. It was quite the opposite, while somethings were a deeper dive then maybe I need in my profession the major themes stuck out.
In the first book we realized the rigor of our scientist is not being held to the standard that it should, especially with public funding. In the second book "The Cholesterol Myths" we start to see how the nutritional science and doctors all just blindly excepted ideas with no questioning of the result. If one did question the result it was either mocked or ignored.
In this book we continue the idea that once certain hypothesis are created namely "Keys' hypothesis" it will be supported by a large segment of the scientific community even when there is compelling science and arguments against it. I feel that many times in the book we see that people are looking for the "one" thing that is causing diabetes and or obesity, when there are a number of things very apparent right in front of them. How the the objectivity of the experiment can not be separated from the result. You find what you are looking for, even if you found 5 other things that could, in turn, prove your point even more. you ignore them and go after the one thing you were searching for the whole time.
The chapters on obesity were very eye opening for me. I learned much about the mechanisms of energy expenditure and eating. 
If someone tells you to eat less cholesterol to improve that lipid profile, it may be nice to point out that science failed to support the efficacy of a low fat diet (referencing Dietary Goals from the 1970’s).  Perhaps the greatest example is the MRFIT study.  Basically, controlling cholesterol levels has a minimal (1%) chance of impacting heart mortality (according to the data from reanalysis circa 1986).  Apparently the reduction in saturated fat to low or zero levels increases life expectancy mere days to a couple months.  Just not worth enduring egg substitutes in my humble opinion.  
Also learning how to give educated arguments against the status quo of eat less fat and cholesterol. that low choesterol diets have seen a greater rise in cancer. That if you ate a certain diet for even 40 years you might add 1 month to your life. Not really worth it. But that your chance of cancer goes up by a greater percentage then the lower of heart risk.
While this was a long read to put in in a month it was well worth it and the information I learned from it can help me talk to physicians and scientist alike about the fallacy of their ways.

This book was an amazing read, a book I will be going back to for sure. Having seen many of the talks the author has given on youtube it is great to have a resource that includes many of his ideas. 

What I continue to struggle with is that with resources such as this, which sites decades of research, studies and anecdotal evidence, that the stereotypical westernized diet is still the most common. 

in Good Calories, Bad Calories there are countless instances that show increases in refined sugar intake and increases in 'diseases of civilization'. One observation that I had not considered was dental problems can possibly be highlighted as a precursor to many Chronic Diseases. 

I cannot wait to get started on next months book!!! 

I have not made it all the way through this one yet, but am plugging away. I have read Why We Get Fat a couple of times and appreciate how much more detail Good Calories, Bad Calories provides.
Even with the reading we have done so far, there are still revelations in this book that leave me asking what motivated the folks that kept plugging their hypotheses when they were disproven over an over again.

Nutritionists can’t agree on anything. They can’t even agree on diametrically opposite points, like whether a high carb diet or a low carb diet is optimal for weight loss. Bring up meat eating versus veganism and you’re likely to start a knife fight. The one thing they could all agree on, though, is that a calorie is a calorie. If you consume more calories than you burn, you gain weight. This was not a matter of biology, but physics. The first law of thermodynamics states that no energy is created or destroyed in a reaction. Whether a calorie comes from fat or carbohydrates can’t change the immutable laws of physics.
Taubes demolishes this proposition. Completely and utterly.
One thing I wondered was: why him? How does a lone journalist overturn the entire nutritional establishment? He has an Ivy league education in physics and engineering, then studied journalism after that. But I don’t think it was his knowledge of science per se that made him unique. In an unusual career move, he became a specialist in bad science. He reported on self-obsessed Nobel prize winners and a team who claimed to have achieved cold fusion. The latter was a case of missing calories, which is a recurring theme in his career. All of the reporting he did on bad physics prepared him to enter the field of nutrition, a smorgasbord of bad science.
One by one, Taubes exposes the leading authorities in heart disease, diabetes and obesity as crap scientists. These men (Keys, Joslin, Mayer and others) fell in love with their pet theories and failed to follow the evidence. Good Calories, Bad Calories weaves together the history and politics of nutrition as the case is built against the calorie balance hypothesis.
He begins with a thorough overview of the diet-heart hypothesis. Like Ravnskov and other authors have done before, he presents the flimsy case for the hypotheses that saturated fat and cholesterol in the diet lead to heart disease. This is important, because the official dietary recommendations to prevent heart disease led the American public to profoundly change their dietary habits. As a country, we reduced our fat intake and increased our carbohydrate intake.
One section of the book I really appreciated was the explanation of cholesterol. As much as I hear about HDL and LDL, Taubes explained the details of what they are, how they’re measured and what they mean very clearly. He explained how some species of small, dense LDL are like “bits of sand” that get stuck everywhere, including arterial plaques. These are the sub-species that are especially elevated in patients with heart disease. This part of the book was top notch.
GCBC contains further sections on diabetes, cancer, caloric restriction and life extension, starvation, psychology and more. There is so much content in this book, it’s truly amazing. I got so caught up in these different threads that I almost forgot about the central thesis of the book.
Without breaking the laws of thermodynamics, Taubes explains what’s going on in obesity by explaining the difference between energy balance and energy partitioning. If more energy is partitioned towards fat storage, then energy can be taken away from activity or the base metabolic rate. Thus, a sedentary lifestyle could be explained as an effect of the body storing fat, not the other way around. It’s a pretty dramatic departure from the mainstream point of view, but he has many pieces of evidence to back up his case.
For example, men and women allocate fat differently in their bodies, both in quantity and location. Men tend to accumulate fat around the abdomen and women more so in the hips and breasts. This is driven by hormones, not intrinsic differences of motivation or character. Hair accumulation is subject to similar hormonal regulations. We don’t say that bald people are too lazy to grow hair.
This brings up one of my favorite quotes from the GCBC:
“Theories that diseases are caused by mental states and can be cured by will power,” as Susan Sontag observed in her 1978 essay Illness as Metaphor, “are always an index of how much is not understood about the physical terrain of a disease.” 
After reading GCBC, I am very happy the book has convinced me that obesity is not a character flaw. I never wanted to believe it and now I have the evidence to dismiss it. Some people are genetically more prone to obesity, like the Pima Indians, than others. This information could lead us into genetic determinism, where obesity is not a person’s fault, but also can’t be treated. Thankfully, genetic determinism doesn’t explain the obesity epidemic of the past few decades. Our genes haven’t changed that fast. Thankfully, Taubes offers a diet that has been stubbornly effective in spite of the protestations of the nutritional establishment.
The low-carb, ketogenic diet works by sidestepping the hormonal dysfunctions that lead to obesity. It works without needing to starve people, too. Low carb diets don’t elevate insulin and trigger the cascade of other hormones, like LPL (lipoprotein lipase), that regulate the flow of fat in and out of cells. When LPL is elevated, it drives fatty acids away from muscle tissue and into adipose for storage. As a result, fewer free fatty acids are available in circulation, which triggers hunger or decreased activity (sometimes both). In spite of an abundance of energy stored within adipose tissue (70,000 calories in 20 lbs of fat, for example), the body still feels hungry because all of these calories are locked up in storage. A low carb diet is a simple and elegant solution to this hormonal mess.
Maybe I should have mentioned this earlier in my lengthy review, but Gary Taubes’ follow-up book, Why We Get Fat, is a more focused and condensed treatment of the ideas presented in GCBC. It’s not a pop nutrition book with recipes and meal plans, though. He goes over the science and history in sufficient detail, but without traversing so broadly through the entire field of health and nutrition. GCBC is truly incredible in scope, but it’s not the book I would hand to someone who just wants to be told what to do.

Fascinating. The ebb and flow of scientific inquiry, government guidelines, associations’ position statements, medical advice, and public perception. How is this change driven? How does “a side” win? Once down a path, how is it reversed? Is “skeptic” or “mainstream” even relevant; isn’t validity/truth/correct/right the goal? Changing the minds of the various groups/populations in the pre-internet era most assuredly was different than today’s one-click-away society. How should the most accurate information get disseminated to individuals/caregivers/healthcare workers? Is the best information for each specific individual necessarily the best information for an entire population, is the reverse true? To me, these behavioral (and maybe procedural?) questions/enigmas are far more interesting than the actual biological science discussed.

wow! — this was a packed book.
Having read "Why we get fat" from Gary Taubes before, I had expected a similar reading experience — well written, easy to understand and all points backed with facts. 
"Good Calories, Bad Calories" takes this, and turns it to 11. 
The book is definitely not an easy evening read — it is packed to the brim with resources, studies and explores every major aspect of nutrition and its history, and feels like it should be part of everyone's repertoire of study books interested in knowing, or teaching about, nutrition.
Once you are through with it, you feel like you need to jump back into the book, in order to actually fully digest all the details and facts listed inside. 
 
Some of the most fascinating research Taubes presents is the lack of evidence of many "common beliefs" in nutrition, which were spread and enforced by so called authorities over the course of decades, that they are now so commonly spread and believed, that books like "Good Calories, Bad Calories" rarely get the spotlight they deserve. An interesting side to this is also how Taubes highlightes how these authorities clearly weren't just motivated by intrinsic factors - but also by the industries that benefitted from refined foods and sugars.

It becomes clear throughout this book that "Calories in vs Calories out" or "a calorie = a calorie", without looking at where they are coming from, are some of these false beliefs in society. One cannot disregard science and biological facts, in order to make those theories work in isolation somehow. Taubes lays out over countless pages that dietary fat is not the cause of the common chronic diseases of civilization — but that carbohydrates and their excessive consumption are at the core of the health problems we see in our civilized world. 
Similar to what is mentioned in the CrossFit Seminar nutrition lectures, the balance of our hormonal processes and their effects downstream can be severely disrupted by the high added-sugar diets we see nowadays. They can cause a host of deadly deases and conditions — even things that are not commonly linked to carbohydrate consumption like cancer or even Alzheimers (basically another form of Diabetes) 
Connected to this are the effects of chronically elevated levels of insulin and the effects that this high level of our "storage hormone" brings with it. For me this was the key learning and also reinforced knowledge presented in the L1 handbook, to give me a more solid foundation of understanding in the science behind it. 
The book also highlights how, once obese, this can lead to a negative spiral in which the body wants more calories, but at the same time can't spend it due to being less physically active — or the metabolism actually down regulating — making the breakout from this spiral even harder. 

Taubes has many more scientifically proven examples and studies in his book, but his reinforcement of the nutritional approach by CrossFit stood out to me the most, and how important the "super hormone" insulin really is. 

While not the easiest to read, this is definitely one of the books that deserves and needs to be re-read a couple of times to make the vast information on its 600+ pages fully understood.

It is extraordinarily difficult to shed decades of biased information from the thought process and be able to fully understand the complex interplay of foods, hormonal signalling, and their ensuing consequences. I am glad that I am not alone in having to read, re-read, and refer back as I struggle to intelligently grasp these concepts. Even more challenging is being able to articulate them in an easily comprehensible fashion to someone who is unfamiliar with them. It literally turns their world upside down, and you can see the skepticism rising with the ever-deepening furrow of their brows.  If we remember nothing from our physics classes, we remember the first law of thermodynamics, and comfortably integrating this with Good Calories Bad Calories challenges us in ways that requires great concentration. The key is hormones and how they participate in the meaning of calories.  The human body is not a simple system. Rather it is extremely complex and unwilling to follow line item rules, transcending mechanical systems.

I was very excited to read this book by Gary Taubes. In the first part of the book Gary goes into a deep analysis of published data regarding the Diet-Heart hypothesis. He concluded that Ancel Keys played a massive role in selling the idea that dietary fat was the main contributor to the increased risk of heart disease.  I particularly enjoyed this part due to the fact that I am working with clients that still believe fat is the villain.  I enjoyed learning about the carbohydrate hypothesis. This hypothesis describes the transition from traditional diets to more westernized diets consisting of high sugar, fat and salt. This transition into high sugar, fat and salt is then related to the increase of chronic diseases.  Another interesting argument is the mythology of obesity where Taubes argues that energy balance does not accurately describe obesity. He describes how there are obese individuals that do not consume a ton of calories and gain weight. On the contrary there are lean individuals that eat high amounts of calories and still loose weight.  Taubes also describes the carbohydrate-insulin hypothesis stating that the increase in refined carbohydrates is causing weight gain due to the increase in insulin levels. 

Although this book was a bit heavy at times to get through, I am very happy to have the resource in my back pocket. 

I haven’t read the book and here is why: I have read so much scientifically based criticism on the book that I can’t get myself to read it. I’m not a scientist and I know only a little of what decent research should look like, so like many others I have to rely on people I believe to be knowledgeable on the subject. I found this link:  
https://thescienceofnutrition.wordpress.com/2014/04/05/good-calories-bad-calories-a-critical-review-chapter-1-the-eisenhower-paradox/

but there are many more to be found. There’s a good one in Dutch, but that would be of no use here 😜 

in science they say: there’s only one thing we know for sure and that is that we know nothing for sure. In this case I think there’s more science pointing into a different direction than Taubes claims. 

I would love to have more time on my hands to learn about how to read research and how to distinguish between the good and bad. It’s just hard for people like me, when you read something that sounds so convincing, to know if you should be convinced or not. it is ofcourse not about how convincing you can put something into words, it’s about how much what you say is actually backed by science. In this case, reading the criticism, not just this one, I would have to say I’m not gonna read it. 

This is not my first time going through this book.  In fact this is my third go through for this book.  I've always found this to be one of the most well researched and cited non-text books I've ever read and honestly was the first book that truly got me interested in looking further into nutrition.

I think a lot of Taubes ideas in this book are brilliant and it's troubling to me how long it's taken since the publication of this book to get some of these ideas to the public, so we as individuals can stop just accepting what the "authorities" on the subject tell us is true and start doing a little research for ourselves.  Look at the abundance of times, just cited in this book, where the evidence didn't show a true connection (or one at all) and the scientist published there opinions anyway. Then when confronted with refuting evidence, stuck their heads in the sand and refused to listen, to the severe detriment of the people they were supposedly trying to help:
Ancel Keys and his cherry pick epidemiological study
The Notion of "Good Cholesterol and Bad Cholesterol" 
Salt being the culprit behind hypertension
that super high Fiber content in a diet is protective
that calories in and calories out are the only concern and nutrient density means nothing
Or my personal favorite the idea of the "essential" carbohydrate for the health and wellness of Human beings.

I mean even looking into a rudimentary level of chemistry should have shown that something was wrong with they hypothesis that the most chemically stable and naturally found fat that had been consumed for the entirety of human existence was the cause of the problem that seemed to have just crept up on the population.  Then to suggest that the answer was to ingest more of the most chemically unstable, man made toxic fats doesn't just speak to negligence or oversight in my opinion, but to malicious intent. These scientist that produced this literature, that has shaped the way the general populations have eaten since the 70's, must have seen the problems with this hypothesis but made the choice not to recognize it because it wasn't going to get them paid or further their careers. This feeling further was further confirmed in me by the book, "Rigor Mortis".

Finally my favorite thing this book addresses and, in my personal opinion, debunks is that a calorie is just a calorie and the quality of a calorie (to say nutrient density per calorie) doesn't matter. Which I've never found that logic to sit well with me.  In all other areas of our lives, quality matters, and to say it doesn't with the chemical substrates that rule over our all our bodies functions seems silly.  Taubes discussion on hunger signaling and insulin's effect on hunger signaling really helps start the conversation that it may not be just the caloric content of our diet but the quality of the calories that will help with proper satiation signaling within the general population and proper hormonal reactions to the foods we eat.
 

If you take even a moment to consider what you eat, you will be confronted with a lot of various claims about the healthfulness of foods. Even if you give no thoughts to diet and exercise, you are still subject to various claims as you grab food off the shelves in the grocery store. Many of the products we buy come in "full fat," "low fat" and "fat free" versions. There are "low sodium" versions of our favorite products as well. Do not forget the "sugar free" and "lite" variants of food stuffs. Furthermore, many foods make claims regarding their vitamin, fiber, and gluten content. You can even shop for food based on how it was raised and what it was fed. It is almost impossible to buy food without having to make some seemingly important choices as to what to buy.  

At some point you have probably wondered why there are so many versions of the foods we buy. You have probably scratched your head and wondered is this really necessary. You might also have wondered if we have such unfettered access to supposedly "healthier" versions of our foods, then why does the country seem to be constantly getting fatter and sicker. You'd be right to wonder such things. Thank goodness Gary Taubes was wondering the same thing. He used his skills as an investigative journalist to help unravel the tangled web of dietary science.  

The party line for many years was that eating fat not only made you fat, but it was also bad for your heart. This hypothesis was put forth by Ansel Keys. The were variations of this hypothesis as well. One variant was that eating cholesterol would raise the cholesterol in your blood and that greater the cholesterol in your blood, the greater your risk of heart disease and death. Other hypotheses grew from these assumptions like that because fat has more calories than carbohydrates it makes you fat. Unless, of course, you burn it off. Because you only get fatter if you have a positive energy balance and only lose weight if you have a negative energy balance. Another wild idea was that fiber was protective of heart disease and that we should endeavor to eat much more of it. 

Gary Taubes researches the history of dietary science and exposes the shameful lack of scientific rigor in regards to the health claims made by the doctors and the government. One by one, Taubes manages to poke holes in the "fat hypothesis" --that fat makes us fat; the "fiber hypothesis" -- that fiber is protective of heart disease; the "cholesterol myth" - that dietary cholesterol causes heart disease; the "energy balance hypothesis" -- that weight control is merely a matter of calories in and calories out. The book is long and filled with footnotes and looks at the long history of dietary claims that have not been backed by science but which have been adopted as true despite the startling lack of evidentiary support.  

The government and doctors and manufacturers of food have been selling us high carbohydrate, low fat, low sodium, high fiber foods for years and telling us how healthy it is. They have been point the finger at meat and fat and salt and gradually poisoning us with processed carbohydrates and added sugars. Reading (listening to) Taubes's words just fills you with rage as he points out how the supposed experts kept reaffirming their party-line in the face of contradictory evidence. Although he doesn't say so, it really makes you wonder if the scientists and the government were all taking bribes from the sugar companies to say that fat was the problem and to keep advising people to eat more carbohydrates.  

The book is sobering and a must read if you want to navigate through what is real and what is fake with nutrition and health science. 



 

My single favorite resource on nutrition to date. Coach Glassman led me to this read back in 2007, and I finally tackled the 468 page tome in 2009, only to be blown away time and again by its contents. The now dog-eared copy on my bookshelf has scribbles, highlights and notes jotted down on virtually every other page. If you are interested in reading a book that simultaneously pulls back the layers of: why our food industry is the way it is, why we think how we think about food, why the quality of the research on nutrition, obesity, and chronic disease is so inadequate, the basics of what food does in our system and how it is metabolized, and how obesity is not caused by eating too much, all from an incredibly smart author that is a journalist with scientific training (not nutrition) then Good Calories, Bad Calories is for you. 

With too many quotes, studies and interesting facts to begin compiling my thoughts about this book, I labored for the month trying to find a way to pay appropriate (to me) homage to its pages. Finally, however, I settled on Gary Taubes’ own writing in his Epilogue on page 454 to summarize and inform one on this incredible read: 

Dietary fat, whether saturated or not, is not a cause of obesity, heart disease, or any other chronic disease of civilization.
        2. The problem is the carbohydrates in the diet, their effect on insulin     
            secretion, and thus the hormonal regulation of homeostasis--the entire            
            harmonic ensemble of the human body. The more easily digestible     
            and refined the carbohydrate, the greater the effect on our health, 
            weight, and well-being. 
        3. Sugars--sucrose and high-fructose corn syrup specifically—are   
            particularly harmful, probably because the combination of fructose 
            and glucose simultaneously elevates insulin levels while overloading 
            the liver with carbohydrates. 
        4. Through their direct effect on insulin and blood sugar, refined 
            carbohydrates, starches, and sugars are the dietary cause of coronary 
            heart disease and diabetes. They are the most likely dietary causes of 
            cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, and the other chronic diseases of 
            civilization. 
        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. Expending more energy than
            we consume does not lead to long-term weight loss; it leads to hunger.
        7. Fattening and obesity are caused by an imbalance—a disequilibrium—   
            in the hormonal regulation of adipose tissue and fat metabolism. Fat 
            synthesis and storage exceed the mobilization of fat from the adipose 
            tissue and its subsequent oxidation. We become leaner when the 
            hormonal regulation of the fat tissue reverses this balance. 
        8. Insulin is the primary regulator of fat storage. When insulin levels are 
            elevated—either chronically or after a meal—we accumulate fat in our  
            fat tissue. When insulin levels fall, we release fat from our fat tissue  
            and use it for fuel. 
        9. By stimulating insulin secretion, carbohydrates make us fat and 
            ultimately cause obesity. The fewer carbohydrates we consume, the 
             leaner we will be. 
        10.By driving fat accumulation, carbohydrates also increase hunger and 
             decrease the amount of energy we expend in metabolism and 
             physical activity. 

If you study nutrition, teach nutrition, or are curious about the subject, read this book. 

This was one of the great books: Pure, White and Deadly; Big Fat Surprize; Good Calories, Bad Calories; In Defense of Food; these were the books that blew open the misleading fat paradigm. The paradigm had, in fact, long been under pressure internally from dissident researchers within the academy, but their voices hadn't reached the people who matter (i.e., humans who eat food) until these gifted communicators communicated it. But sadly, another reason the dissident voices hadn't articulated their dissidence more vocally was self-censorship: the academy is not the cockpit of freedom of speech we'd wish it were; it has its own interests and it'll defend those in a partisan fashion. These authors (John Yudkin of Pure, White and Deadly excepted, and he paid the professional price) are and were journalists, albeit of the superior kind in which the U.S. specialises, and they were professionally incentivised to attack, not defend, the misleading paradigm.
Interstingly, the books named above do not all fully agree with each other, which is appropriate. The science is not settled, so its critics will differ; but none of those critics has perpetrated the enormities the defenders of the traditional paradigm have perpetrated.

One of the many frustrating facts that Taubes writes about was the 1984 study that wound up on the cover of Time magazine. The study was performed on middle-aged men, whose cholesterol levels were 95 percent higher than the general population. Still, results were extrapolated upon to apply to all humans. Even for someone outside of the health industry, it is easy to see how such conclusions are unfounded. This is maddening for multiple reasons, but the gender piece is particularly piercing because this seems to be a trend that we have seen in many studies discussed in both Rigor Mortis and The Cholesterol Myths. In the absence of medical trials that value diversity, we are bound to reach shortsighted conclusions. 

Does anyone remember actually seeing that cover of a frowning plate of eggs with bacon? The image is a little before my time, however I think I may have seen it elsewhere as an advertisement. It seems to be an iconic image that, after reading Taubes, has lost its credibility to instruct viewers in a simple, visual manner.  

“improved prosperity.” Nestle, like Brownell, considered the food and entertainment industries culpable: “They turn people with expendable income into consumers of aggressively marketed foods that are high in energy but low in nutritional value, and of cars, television sets, and computers that promote sedentary behavior. Gaining weight is good for business,” Nestle wrote.”  (Taubes, G. 2007). This statement like so much more in Chapter 14 hits home with me.  When I first came to Germany in the mid 90’s, it was very noticeable how active people were, the lack of fast food restaurants and most people were of average weight.  Living here now for almost 20 years and with the introduction of more fast foods cars, higher paying jobs and most if not all families owning vehicles, this has changed quiet significantly.  I would always hear about the “Americans” being overweight and lazy but no is the case in Germany as well.  Oma’s (Grandma’s) home cooked meals prepared with care are now replaced with highly refined and processed meals, full of useless carbs and perservatives.  It’s very hard for most Germans, myself included to accept this....as Brötchen (think of a Hawaiian Dinner Roll) and potatoes...and for most families Soda as well...make up most of their meals.  This was true with my family as well, in my early years of Marriage and the Military which are both thank God behind me.  I was one of the if not fittest guys in our Unit, but I was skinny fat..and had never ending stomach issues.  It all stemmed from the meals my ex wife was preparing, she was preparing meals similar to what her Grandmother had served from which her father thrived (guy never lifted weights, worked on their farm and ate Oma’s meals and was a shit brick house), where as I after most meals had stomach cramps or even had to use the bathroom immediately.  I often struggled to understand how is it that I could train 2x a day and be considered one of the fittest guys in the Unit but definitely not look it or most days even feel that way.  After some considerable changes to my diet and eliminating these refined and processed carbs, particularly to include Soda and the Brötchen, things in my physique and gastrointestinal area improved greatly.  A common theme that I find in these books from Gary Taubes is that those living in poverty or lower social classes are kind of doomed by the same I have experienced but without any knowledge of the dangers of what they are consuming or in some instances maybe no chance to change it, this epedemic won’t change.  Same could be said for those receiving medical care in places like Nursing Homes or even Hospitals where their meals consist of highly processed and refined carbs...this will only hinder the healing process and in some cases cause some people to leave the hospital or care home sicker then when they entered.  The struggle is real and it’s a battle most are not even aware they are losing.  

First thing, I haven't read the whole book. It is a book that I found it especially dense and knowing that "Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It" and "Is Sugar Toxic?" are books that summarize the conclusions of this book, I would have liked to start with them.
 
Taubes makes an exhaustive analysis of hundreds of articles, studies, history and science of nutrition, to the point that I do not feel clear conclusions about almost anything but rather it  makes me doubt about everything. (something that doesn't bother me).
 
From what I have read, and it has caught my attention, is Taubes' approach about questioning of the thermogenesis law. I have to say that I still think that this is a matter of mathematics: what comes in and what comes out. I understand that many very different things can come in and that will affect us differently, but I do not agree to challenge this law 100%.
 
Nutrition is a very complex issue. Mainly, due to the difficulty of studies with humans and the complexity of isolating factors. It is possible that Taubes was right in the fact that not all fats are equal. In fact, there are several examples of high-fat diets that do not present problems, such as that of the Eskimos. The question is if the fats we consume in developed / industrialized countries are comparable to that of the Eskimos. And what is more important, what are they accompanied by.
The same should happen when it comes to to analyzing carbohydrates, however I don't think Taubes places so much emphasis on it but on the fact of demonizing them under the same umbrella.
 
Addressing this issue has made me want to investigate more about the causalities of obesity and if in my opinion, a person who is generally obese (and I hate absolutism), is not obese by chance but causality, but  genetic heritage can be really high , from 50 to 75% depending on the individual.
 
That said, I'm not looking for an excuse for obesity, but a greater understanding. And this book made me want to look for more info.

I found myself thinking through the first half of this book...SERIOUSLY?  another frustrating example of crappy science misleading the public for decades?  
I began drawing parallels in regards to misleading science, to the tobacco companies unrelenting campaign to convince people that smoking is not bad for them!  I often see people smoking and think to myself , "seriously??? with all the research out there to prove it causes cancer?".
 "Since the mid 1950's researchers have known that the total amount of dietary fat has little effect on cholesterol levels".  
Which means that researchers and our government have CHOSEN to deceive and mislead.  This is the third book we have read that attempts to uncover the lies and deception, and that is just scratching the surface!
I appreciated the second half of Good Calories, Bad Calories because I liked Taubes candid explanations of the causes of obesity.  It was also refreshing to read something on this subject that dared the medical community to take ownership of educating their own patients.
"It is incredible that in twentieth-century America a conscientious physician should have his hard-won professional reputation placed on the line for daring to suggest that an obesity victim might achieve some relief by cutting out sugars and starches".
That quote pretty much sums up why our population is stuck where it is and  I applaud those willing to go against the grain to speak and teach the truth!!

Having read this book previously, it was great to take the month to go through the notes I made in the margins the first time.  The breadth and depth of this book is beyond impressive and I echo the appreciation for the plunge into the science “which fosters discussion at the appropriate level of complexity.”  I mean, the notes bibliography alone spans 111 pages!  

Some of my thoughts (in no particular order and simply a few things that I enjoyed and found interesting).

It was cool to circle back on some issues discussed in Rigor Mortis, particularly confirmation bias and data exclusion.  Additionally, some key studies appear to be referenced regularly on the topic of cholesterol and heart disease, specifically The Seven Countries study and its contribution to the French Paradox, The Masai Nomad studies, The Framingham Heart Study (circa 1950), and MRFIT.  

Page 152 is a great reference summary of the book. 

I really enjoyed all of the juxtaposition created by Taubes’ arguments against established nutritional recommendations.  For example, “During the worst decades of the heart disease ‘epidemic’ vegetable fat consumption per capita in America doubled!  This book is chalked full of similar “well, that’s messed up” examples.  What about the fact that Ancel Keys acknowledged that his own hypothesis was based more on speculation than data?  It’s amazing that the observation of the diseases of civilization and laboratory research presenting evidence relating processed CHO to hyperinsulinemia and chronic disease were dismissed when viewed through the filter of Key’s hypothesis.  Ultimately, the statement from page 400 says it all, “CHO is driving insulin is driving fat.”  And you might as well tack chronic disease onto that no?

I have marked pages 168 and page 328 to speak to the value of eating meat.  

If someone tells you to eat less cholesterol to improve that lipid profile, it may be nice to point out that science failed to support the efficacy of a low fat diet (referencing Dietary Goals from the 1970’s).  Perhaps the greatest example is the MRFIT study.  Basically, controlling cholesterol levels has a minimal (1%) chance of impacting heart mortality (according to the data from reanalysis circa 1986).  Apparently the reduction in saturated fat to low or zero levels increases life expectancy mere days to a couple months.  Just not worth enduring egg substitutes in my humble opinion.  

Refined CHO and sugar are a big problem and fat, salt, and fiber probably aren’t that big of a deal.  Oh, and HFCS 55 is nasty stuff.  

I really enjoyed learning about Occam’s Razor on page 139. 

I can’t remember where but this quote is cool, “Nutrition is a six-way teeter-totter. Have you ever tried to balance such a device?”  So is the phrase “gustatory sensualism.”

Of note, this book is a beast for expanding vocabulary.  I have a long list of words I jotted down like vicissitudes, impecunious, tautology, prescient, and abstemious to name just a few.  

This is the type of book I will need to read numerous time in order to truly understand all. 

I really appreciated that the author took the time to present the reasons and events that made us end up to the sad actual situation : obesity and chronic diseases.  

The section on obesity was a eye opener for me.  I knew that the role of healthy diet is to eat in such a way we can tap into our fat storage for « ulimited » energy.  This will also allow us to avoid hyperinsulinemia and non alcoholic fatty liver syndrome.

What I didn’t know or took the time to really understand is why people get fat.  As a gym owner and an athlete it is easy to come to the conclusion that you need to eat less and move more if you don’t want to be fat.  What is very new to me is that eating too much  and not moving enough are causes of hyperinsulinemia and obesity, not the other way around.  So pushing your clients to move more and eat less is not sufficient if they have reached insulin resistance.  Being fat is a problem with storing fat faster then you can access it and creating a negative calorie balance even if we are fatter. It was hard for me to understand that you accumulate fat and that creates a negative energy balance that trigger’s you to eat more, or reduce your energy et metabolism.  All because internally you are starving your cells by not allowing them to utilize fat.  Eating less is not the answer. But eating less carbs is!

Here is what I understand : insulin is the primary responsible for locking down the fat cells and not letting the fatty acid into the block stream.  Our body ends up only functioning on Glucose and as soon as the glucose is going down we have a negative energy (fat cannot be used as fuel).  I didn’t realize that having the energy to move or that lack of energy is correlated with fat mobilization  and that makes it insulin dependent.  

The book is mainly about staying away from chronic disease but I can see how an athlete/healthy person can benefit from understanding how to utilize is fat and not mostly function on glycogen storage.  It should make everyone question our ways of organizing our day with multiple meals a day, the  judgement of obese people and the fact that if you are insulin resistant you are on your way to sickness.  Most people don’t understand that there is a urgency to controlling their insulin.  I hope that the awareness and message we send to the public keeps helping people who make the choice to know the truth continue their good fight.  

Like Gary Taubes says many times it is not about making things simpler then they are, that leads to mistakes, but it is about understanding the real effect of carbs and helping those who are addicted to quit.