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Good Calories, Bad Calories | 
 enlarge | Author: Gary Taubes
Publisher: Knopf
Category: Book
List Price: $27.95
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Rating:  203 reviews
Sales Rank: 19115
Format: Roughcut
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Pages: 640
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.1
Dimensions (in): 9.4 x 6.6 x 1.7
ISBN: 1400040787
Dewey Decimal Number: 613.283
EAN: 9781400040780
ASIN: 1400040787
Publication Date: September 25, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
In this groundbreaking book, the result of seven years of research in every science connected with the impact of nutrition on health, award-winning science writer Gary Taubes shows us that almost everything we believe about the nature of a healthy diet is wrong.
For decades we have been taught that fat is bad for us, carbohydrates better, and that the key to a healthy weight is eating less and exercising more. Yet with more and more people acting on this advice, we have seen unprecedented epidemics of obesity and diabetes. Taubes argues persuasively that the problem lies in refined carbohydrates (white flour, sugar, easily digested starches) and sugars–via their dramatic and longterm effects on insulin, the hormone that regulates fat accumulation–and that the key to good health is the kind of calories we take in, not the number. There are good calories, and bad ones.
Good Calories
These are from foods without easily digestible carbohydrates and sugars. These foods can be eaten without restraint.
Meat, fish, fowl, cheese, eggs, butter, and non-starchy vegetables.
Bad Calories
These are from foods that stimulate excessive insulin secretion and so make us fat and increase our risk of chronic disease—all refined and easily digestible carbohydrates and sugars. The key is not how much vitamins and minerals they contain, but how quickly they are digested. (So apple juice or even green vegetable juices are not necessarily any healthier than soda.)
Bread and other baked goods, potatoes, yams, rice, pasta, cereal grains, corn, sugar (sucrose and high fructose corn syrup), ice cream, candy, soft drinks, fruit juices, bananas and other tropical fruits, and beer.
Taubes traces how the common assumption that carbohydrates are fattening was abandoned in the 1960s when fat and cholesterol were blamed for heart disease and then –wrongly–were seen as the causes of a host of other maladies, including cancer. He shows us how these unproven hypotheses were emphatically embraced by authorities in nutrition, public health, and clinical medicine, in spite of how well-conceived clinical trials have consistently refuted them. He also documents the dietary trials of carbohydrate-restriction, which consistently show that the fewer carbohydrates we consume, the leaner we will be.
With precise references to the most significant existing clinical studies, he convinces us that there is no compelling scientific evidence demonstrating that saturated fat and cholesterol cause heart disease, that salt causes high blood pressure, and that fiber is a necessary part of a healthy diet. Based on the evidence that does exist, he leads us to conclude that the only healthy way to lose weight and remain lean is to eat fewer carbohydrates or to change the type of the carbohydrates we do eat, and, for some of us, perhaps to eat virtually none at all.
The 11 Critical Conclusions of Good Calories, Bad Calories:
1. Dietary fat, whether saturated or not, does not cause heart disease.
2. Carbohydrates do, because of their effect on the hormone insulin. The more easily-digestible and refined the carbohydrates and the more fructose they contain, the greater the effect on our health, weight, and well-being.
3. Sugars—sucrose (table sugar) and high fructose corn syrup specifically—are particularly harmful. The glucose in these sugars raises insulin levels; the fructose they contain overloads the liver.
4. Refined carbohydrates, starches, and sugars are also the most likely dietary causes of cancer, Alzheimer’s Disease, and the other common chronic diseases of modern times.
5. Obesity is a disorder of excess fat accumulation, not overeating and not sedentary behavior.
6. Consuming excess calories does not cause us to grow fatter any more than it causes a child to grow taller.
7. Exercise does not make us lose excess fat; it makes us hungry.
8. We get fat because of an imbalance—a disequilibrium—in the hormonal regulation of fat tissue and fat metabolism. More fat is stored in the fat tissue than is mobilized and used for fuel. We become leaner when the hormonal regulation of the fat tissue reverses this imbalance.
9. Insulin is the primary regulator of fat storage. When insulin levels are elevated, we stockpile calories as fat. When insulin levels fall, we release fat from our fat tissue and burn it for fuel.
10. By stimulating insulin secretion, carbohydrates make us fat and ultimately cause obesity. By driving fat accumulation, carbohydrates also increase hunger and decrease the amount of energy we expend in metabolism and physical activity.
11. The fewer carbohydrates we eat, the leaner we will be.
Good Calories, Bad Calories is a tour de force of scientific investigation–certain to redefine the ongoing debate about the foods we eat and their effects on our health.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 198 more reviews...
 Up is down...black is white....that's what this book does for diets. January 6, 2009
D. Adams (Puget Sound, WA state)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
If you presume to know what's healthy, you watch your fat intake, calories....you eat salads and rarely touch a steak then you MUST read this book. It most definitely IS NOT a Diet Book. Its science, its facts, its the TRUTH and its amazing.
I started reading online articles by Taubes about 6 years ago and eagerly awaited this book. I changed the way I viewed nutrition and "healthy" foods based on those articles as well as many, many others by many, many authors (see Mary G. Enig and Sally Fallon), and I'll never by fooled into eating tofu or rice cakes again. And cholesterol meds! I'd have to be bound and gagged before I'd take them....even if my levels were sky high.
Every new so called "study" that shows up on the evening news makes me cringe. And I often get online, go directly to the source and read the study for myself. You'd be shocked at how much they leave out or twist on the evening news. Truthfully, I have to wonder if it's all been a mistake or quite on purpose seeing that health care in the USA is now the number one industry.
I've seen a lot of reviews that claim the book is difficult to read. Yes....it's big and there is a lot of science....but I'm one of the reviewers that found it hard to put down. I hate to admit it's the only book I've read in about 3 years.
Read this book.
Not for the shallow orthodox mind December 23, 2008
BLH557 (Brazoria Texas)
4 out of 7 found this review helpful
I'll keep it simple. If you can't be swayed by science, or have no understanding of physiology this is not the book for you. It is hard science and some good lessons in cellular physiology. As a practicing Doctor of Chiropractic I already understood the basics of the science before I read this book. I wanted to see if he would "tow the party line" or relinquish and bow to the orthodoxy; NO TOWING HERE! Though he attempts to present an objective assessment of the data and the orthodox response (or non-response) to it, he slips his incredulity out of the box on the mindless dogmatic antithetical responses to the science that the medical profession so proudly professes to embrace... was that a run-on... except when it doesn't fit their world-view. I am very impressed with the thoroughness of Mr. Taubes' research. I am also very impressed with his simplified explanations of some very deep physiological science. Some of it I was surprised to see and some of it I was surprised he could uncover. I have seen studies expunged from the literature because it did not espouse the orthodox dogma related to cholesterol. In particular a Japanese study of 20,000 individuals followed for a period of 20 years that presented the cholesterol stats revealed by the author. Even though the book took me five days to read (it takes me seven days to read the Lord of the Rings Trilogy - 1500+ pages), I wouldn't consider it an easy book. I have a background in physiology, which made it easier for me. The uneducated reader may find it a daunting task to complete, if not totally boring. I would definitely recommend this for any health-care professional who is interested in the science of fat metabolism, anthropological-based nutrition, as well as diabetes and obesity. But, be advised: leave the dogma at home.
Meticulously thorough and highly insightful December 22, 2008
brian0918 (Ohio)
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
Anything I could possibly say about this book has probably already been said, so I will keep it simple: this book is amazingly thorough and detailed in its analysis of the past 150 years of obesity research. If you take the time to actually read the book, every chapter, especially the last four chapters, you will find the book highly insightful.
This book has also given me a jumping-off point for reading countless other books and articles on the subject, such as William Banting's Letter on Corpulence, A. W. Pennington's journal articles, Herman Taller's Calories Don't Count, or Atkins's New Diet Revolution.
My experience has mirrored the claims in the book. Over the last three months, I have lost 20+ pounds very easily, all with no exercise and no feeling of hunger, just by eating more meat, cheese, nuts, and less breads, pasta, sweets. The whole time, my only exercise was reading (this book, and a few others). I should also note that my full time work requires little or no labor.
 Right on the mark December 10, 2008
Susan Richart (Washington State USA)
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
Gary Taubes's research matches what my body has told me. I tried the Rotation Diet back in the '80s and was successful. I didn't mind being on the 600/900 60% protein/fat portion, but absolutely hated the 1200 portion (low-fat ratio), because I was always hungry on it. I've tried the Protein Power diet and liked it, but had problems with arachidonic acid and could never really balance out the carbs effectively. After reading Good Calories, Bad Calories, I'm giving the low-card diet another go with the knowledge I gained from Potatoes Not Prozac about controlling serotonin levels. My thanks to Gary Taubes for explaining why my body has reacted the way it has. The book is very thorough and absolutely informative.
A small note about his comments on cancer. A few years ago, a NIH researcher mentioned that Marin County, California had one of the highest cancer rates in the county. I asked about pesticides. She said that the workers, who actually worked in the areas being sprayed, did not have the high cancer rate; it was the wealthy homeowners and so far they didn't have an actual cause. I suspect that Gary Taubes has found it with the low-fat diet increasing insulin in the blood and revving up the cancer cells.
Enjoy and do buy the book, your life will never be the same.
Great Book November 30, 2008
Ronald B. Dubois
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
Good Calories, Bad Calories: Fats, Carbs, and the Controversial Science of Diet and Health (Vintage)This book is amazing. Applies critical thinking and the scientific process to shatter myths about food. Certainly has changed the way I look at my food choices. I recommend this read for anyone interested in eating healthy based on scientific fact rather than myths, hype, and misleading marketing.
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