Book Review: “Good Calories Bad Calories”

Your mother, my mother, and their mothers preached the wisdom of eating vegetables, but did we know why? In my mother’s case it was about not wasting food. For some it might be a kind of self discipline. Other mothers may have focused on the importance of vitamins, or getting acquainted with new foods. Now we have another solid reason for eating asparagus, spinach, tomatoes, and other colorful things that grow from the ground.

Science writer Gary Taubes has written the book “Good Calories Bad Calories” in which he explores the question: Why are so many Americans obese? The conventional answer is: Because we eat too much food and too much fat. But Taubes, who is a first-rate scientist, reached a very different conclusion. After looking at virtually all the studies related to obesity and heart disease of the last 50 years, he concludes that the problem is carbs.

A simplified model of what he describes is this: The high carb foods, also known as the white foods–white flour, white rice, white potatoes, sugar in all its forms– are absorbed very quickly by the gut and result in large blood sugar spikes that require large insulin surges to keep blood sugar in a healthy range. Insulin is a powerful hormone that will override other hormones. Over time, high levels of insulin in the blood disrupt the proper functioning of the body in a multitude of ways. Long term effects of the imbalances are the so-called diseases of civilization: obesity, asthma, diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, cancer, and Alzheimer’s.

This is not a diet book. There are no menus and no recipes. It is an analysis of the scientific studies on which current medical thinking is based and the interpretation of those studies. Be prepared for some serious reading and some surprising conclusions.