Good Calories, Bad Calories

Gary Taubes

Sep 2007 · Sold by Anchor

About this ebook

This groundbreaking book by award-winning science writer and bestselling author of Why We Get Fat and The Case for Keto 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 despite this advice, we have seen unprecedented epidemics of obesity and diabetes. Taubes argues that the problem lies in refined carbohydrates, like white flour, easily digested starches, and sugars, and that the key to good health is the kind of calories we take in, not the number.

Called “a very important book,” by Andrew Weil and ”destined to change the way we think about food,” by Michael Pollan, this groundbreaking book by award-winning science writer Gary Taubes shows us that almost everything we believe about the nature of a healthy diet is wrong.

Ratings and reviews

After months to finish it I can finally say this is one of the densest books that I have ever read. The author Gary Taubes is a famous journalist who shares through his very own detailed research, full of uncountable references, a story of how the major concepts regarding weight gain, obesity, diabetes and dieting evolved in the past few decades. Even though I was pretty sure that I would find it very biased as most of the mainstream nutrition books, I was very surprised to find out that in fact, while it is clear his book supports a low carbohydrate approach as a strategy for better health, he did not do it by pointing fingers at others, instead, he invested his time in writing, collecting data of what he feels is more relevant to his arguments and leaving it up to the reader to decide whether what he says makes sense. For my part, regarding the reduction of carbohydrates, mainly refined ones, I can say that I believe it makes sense and I feel the benefits in my own diet.

This book catalogs Taube's meticulous inquiry into the past century of nutrition science, politics, and policy. What he unearths from his investigation is an avalanche of bad science and politics that probably pushed back back the scientific progress of health by at least 50 years. Completely shocking and in my opinion one of the most important books in the field of health/nutrition ever written.

This book changed my life. I have been able to keep off over 50 pounds of weight since reading this book. Somewhat long and technical, but very informative.

About the author

GARY TAUBES is cofounder and senior scientific advisor of the Nutrition Science Initiative (NuSI). He's an award-winning science and health journalist, the author of Why We Get Fat and Good Calories, Bad Calories, and a former staff writer for Discover and correspondent for the journal Science. His writing has also appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, and Esquire, and has been included in numerous Best of anthologies, including The Best of the Best American Science Writing (2010). He has received three Science in Society Journalism Awards from the National Association of Science Writers. He is also the recipient of a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Investigator Award in Health Policy Research. He lives in Oakland, California.