Good Calories, Bad Calories: Fats, Carbs, and the Controversial Science of Diet and Health (Vintage) [Paperback] Review

Gary Taubes reviews the medical research of the past 50 years to establish that the connections between fat and cholesterol and heart disease have never been proven and that, on the contrary, the case that unrefined carbohydrates are responsible for obesity and the so-called "diseases of civilization" has been made by the very studies that have been used to defend the "fat" hypothesis.His review of the research is exhaustive. He does not claim that exercise does not improve muscle tone and overall health. Rather, he argues that exercise is not aa "cure" for obesity, and may even make some people fatter, because they eat more of the wrong foods after exercising.

Taubes writes that the rule to follow is the same one that your mother taught you:starch and sweets make you fat.The solution is to center your diet around protein and non-starchy carbs such as green vegetables and berries, and not to worry about fat so much as unrefined flour, rice and other processed foods.(As one reviewer below points out, "bad" calories may include meat, fish and poultry that has been fed a diet of highly-processed grain.Buy grass-fed, and read labels: much of the canned and prepared food that you buy, including some yogurts, contains sugar and food additives made from corn (corn syrup, citric acid, etc.))

Anecdotally, after reading Taubes's 2002 article in the NYT, I realized that I had started gaining weight -- put on twelve pounds, and gone from a size 6 to an 8 or 10 -- precisely when I had changed my diet in the late 1970s to conform to the "new wisdom" regarding fats and carbohydrates.Exercise -- running and yoga -- had helped me to hold the line at 12 pounds, but could not take off the added weight. My husband, for whom I had assiduously prepared low-fat, high-carb meals for years, was 25 pounds overweight, despite daily exercise.Although I had tried The Zone, and lost weight, I was scared to switch permanently to what my doctor warned me was a dangerous diet.So I'd switched back to low fat/high carb, and back came the 12 pounds.

Then, last year, we began cooking with Julia Child's "Art of French Cooking" and, rather than getting fatter, I actually lost -- yes, lost -- weight eating all those butter-sauteed veggies and creamy quiches.When I once again became concerned about eating too much fat, and returned to a low-fat/high carb diet, back came the weight.

Finally, 8 weeks ago -- before reading Taube's book -- I decided that low carb (meaning low starch) had proven itself to me twice over, and that I was going to do what worked. So I ate protein (eggs, fish, chicken, dairy), organic greens and other low-starch veggies, and tossed the rice, bread, potatoes, and sugar.I didn't worry about the fat and cholesterol in eggs, swiss cheese, whole-milk yogurt or almonds; that fat kept me full, and I wasn't eating tons of such foods (who could?), just enough to feel satisfied.

I have lost 8 pounds since July.I feel great.I am not hungry.I no longer have the digestive problems that I used to describe as a "sensitive stomach."Moreover, having recently bullied my husband into giving up sugar, white rice, potatoes and all but multi-grain bread, I am certain that his weight will soon come down as well.

In short, my mother (who was not sick a day in her life until she died -- still trim -- at age ninety, and whose cooking kept my father alive until the same age) was right, and so is Gary.Listen to your stomach, watch your scale -- and read this book.

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