Feeling frustrated with your weight loss journey and quest for better health? If you’re relying on mainstream dietary advice, you might be approaching it all wrong. In his book Good Calories, Bad Calories, award-winning science writer Gary Taubes challenges several conventional ideas in health and nutrition science, including the belief that consuming fewer calories than you burn is the key to losing weight. Taubes also highlights that many supposedly-healthy diets–such as low-fat diets–can actually lead to health issues. This summary and review will explore some dietary advice that Taubes believes we’ve mistakenly accepted over the years. This article will cover:
- Overview of Good Calories, Bad Calories
- Good Calories, Bad Calories Book Review
- Who Should Read Good Calories, Bad Calories?
- Other Recommended Sources
- About The Author
- Good Calories, Bad Calories Quotes
Let’s dive straight in!
Overview of Good Calories, Bad Calories
We’re often encouraged to avoid fatty food and prioritize low-fat meals as part of a healthier diet. However, there is little evidence to suggest that low-fat foods are better than whole-fat options. In fact, according to Gary Taubes, this claim might be entirely untrue.
His thesis, published in 2002, challenged the long-standing belief in low-fat diets, arguing that flawed scientific evidence has shaped many misconceptions about diet and the diseases linked to certain eating habits. Over a decade later, he expands on these ideas in his book, highlighting how poor research has misled people into following unhealthy dietary guidelines.
When it comes to choosing the right dietary approach, he emphasizes the need to first unlearn some of the conventional wisdoms about nutrition which might be false. Let’s explore some of the misconceptions he believes are holding us back.
The Big Fat Lie About Fat and Heart Disease
You might think that dietary fat, cholesterol, and heart disease are connected, but Taubes argues otherwise.
He explains how the belief linking dietary fats to heart disease started in the early 1950s with the fat-cholesterol hypothesis. This hypothesis claims that eating fat increases cholesterol levels. Accumulation of cholesterol can clog arteries and lead to heart problems.
However, the evidence for this connection has not been strong, and many experts disagree. For instance, the Minnesota Coronary Experiment of 1968-73 found no significant link between dietary fat and heart disease.
Furthermore, Good Calories Bad Calories suggest that the fat-cholesterol hypothesis was based on selective data, focusing only on countries that supported the idea and ignoring those that did not.
Taubes argues that it also overlooked the impact of sugar and refined carbohydrates, which can cause serious health issues by overwhelming the body’s regulatory systems. We will explore this topic further in the next section.
What Really Makes Us Sick?
Dietary carbohydrates are an essential part of our body’s nutrients. But, Gary Taubes explains why sugar and refined carbohydrates are significant contributors to poor health. Carbohydrates, particularly processed ones, disrupt the body’s delicate hormonal balance. Insulin, the primary regulator of blood sugar, plays a central role in this process. When we consume excessive amounts of carbohydrates, insulin levels spike to manage the surge in sugar. Over time, this can lead to insulin resistance, a condition in which the body has difficulty effectively regulating blood sugar levels. Furthermore, this condition promotes the storage of fat.
Being insulin resistant is a precursor to many chronic conditions, including diabetes, heart disease, obesity, high blood pressure, and even cancer. Furthermore, refined carbohydrates lack fiber, which aids in digestion and stabilizes blood sugar levels. Without this buffering effect, the rapid absorption of sugar can overwhelm the system. Taubes argues that this hormonal dysregulation is at the root of many so-called “diseases of civilization,” such as hypertension, cardiovascular disease, and even Alzheimer’s.
High Carb Diets and Diseases of Civilization
As mentioned earlier, carb-heavy diets are directly implicated in a host of chronic diseases. Taubes connects the dots between high carbohydrate consumption and conditions like:
Type 2 Diabetes: Elevated sugar intake overwhelms the body’s ability to process glucose, leading to insulin resistance and eventually diabetes.
Heart Disease: Higher-carb diets raise triglycerides, promote chronic inflammation, and disrupt healthy cholesterol ratios.
Cancer: Tumor growth is fueled by insulin-like growth factor (IGF), which is elevated by high-carb diets (or an over-consumption of carbohydrates).
Alzheimer’s Disease: Sometimes referred to as “type 3 diabetes,” Alzheimer’s is linked to insulin resistance and the accumulation of toxic proteins in the brain.
The Carbs–Obesity Connection: Why Dieting Feels So Hard
Ever wondered why counting calories usually doesn’t work? The common idea of “calories in, calories out” suggests that if you eat fewer calories than you burn, you’ll lose weight. But Gary Taubes’s research shows it’s a lot more complicated than just counting calorie intake or avoiding a sedentary lifestyle.
When you are on a low calorie diet, your metabolism slows down to save energy. Back in World War II, a study known as Keys’ semi-starvation experiment showed that participants lost only a small amount of weight while dealing with extreme fatigue, constant hunger, and mental stress.
Another aspect involved is the effects of insulin associated with carbon intake. Often, in the case of a diet heavy in refined carbs, insulin levels increase, resulting in your body’s tendency to store fat instead of burning it, which makes you feel hungry all the time. Plus, while physical activity and exercising are good for you, they burns fewer calories than you might think and can often make you hungrier.
On the flip side, when you go for a low-carb diet, your insulin levels drop. This means your body starts using fat stores for energy. With this shift, you feel less hungry, and your energy levels really pick up. This approach leads to gradual long-term weight loss that’s way more sustainable.
Food Rules That Actually Work
To shake off old health advice and get better results, Taubes suggests we follow some straightforward food guidelines. These tips can really help us step up our health game and live our best lives!
- Focus on quality, not quantity: Avoid processed foods and prioritize unprocessed, real foods like whole grains, lean proteins, fruits, and vegetables.
- Embrace dietary fat: Healthy fats from sources like fish, nuts, and avocados are essential for satiety and energy.
- Cut down on sugar and refined carbs: These foods disrupt insulin regulation and fuel fat storage.
- Prioritize protein: Protein helps maintain muscle mass, stabilizes energy levels, and supports overall health.
- Eat intuitively: Let hunger and fullness guide your eating, rather than rigid meal schedules or calorie counting.
Good Calories, Bad Calories Book Review
Gary Taubes’s Good Calories, Bad Calories questions the common wisdom of modern diets, arguing that carbohydrate intake, not fat, is the main cause of the unprecedented epidemics of obesity and related health problems. The book uses abundant evidence to challenge what nutritional science has long promoted—low-fat diets as the solution for maintaining a healthy weight. While Taubes’s research is detailed, critics like science journalist Gina Kolata have raised reasonable doubt about whether his selective focus fully represents the complex picture. Also, his writing can be pretty dense and filled with scientific info, which might leave readers feeling a bit lost about what might be missing. Furthermore, although his critique of mainstream nutritional science is thought-provoking, for some readers, it may feel one-sided, as it leans heavily on evidence supporting his viewpoint.
Despite its challenges, the book opens a conversation about how the health industry has shaped public health guidelines – and undeniably provides valuable insights into how dietary choices impact health and encourages questioning established norms.
Who Should Read Good Calories, Bad Calories?
Good Calories, Bad Calories is a great read for anyone curious about how nutrition affects weight gain and chronic illnesses. It’s particularly helpful for those who are health-conscious and want to rethink mainstream diet advice, and the medical community looking to understand how diet impacts health. Whether you want to learn about the history of nutrition, dive into low-carb diets, understand the impact of diet on health, or just make better food choices, this groundbreaking book gives you a solid, evidence-based look that challenges the usual beliefs about eating.
Other Recommended Sources
Want to learn more about the science behind nutrition and the human body? Check out these additional resources.
The China Study by T. Colin Campbell and Thomas M. Campbell II takes a deep look at how what we eat is connected to chronic diseases. It really pushes the idea that sticking to a whole-food, plant-based diet can help prevent sickness.
In The Story of the Human Body: Evolution, Health & Disease, Daniel Lieberman talks about how our evolution has shaped who we are today. He highlights how our biology doesn’t really match up with modern lifestyles, which can lead to health issues. This ties in nicely with the ideas in Good Calories, Bad Calories, which also looks at how today’s diets affect us.
Then there’s Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease, where Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn promotes a plant-based, low-fat diet as a way to fight and even reverse heart disease. This is pretty different from what Taubes suggests, which is more about incorporating healthy fats and cutting down on sugar and refined carbs.
Lastly, Ultra-Processed People by Chris van Tulleken takes a closer look at how ultra-processed foods have become so popular and the impact they have on our health, as well as the societal shifts that have fueled their rise.
About The Author
Good Calories, Bad Calories is written by Gary Taubes, an American bestselling author, science journalist, and co-founder of the non-profit Nutrition Science Initiative. Taubes has a degree in applied physics from Harvard College and received an M.S. degree in engineering from Stanford University and a Masters degree in Journalism from Columbia University. He has won numerous awards for his journalism on health-related topics, including a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Investigator Award in Health Policy Research. He is the author of Rethinking Diabetes, The Case Against Sugar, Why We Get Fat and What to Do About It, and Good Calories, Bad Calories.
Good Calories, Bad Calories Quotes
“The first principle is that you must not fool yourself—and you are the easiest person to fool.”
“To be a dissenter was to be unfunded because the peer-review system rewards conformity and excludes criticism,”
“The qualities of the diet that matters most to health are the quantity and type of carbohydrates consumed.”
“High intake of refined carbohydrates, particularly sugars, is responsible for the epidemics of obesity and diabetes plaguing our society.”
“Our bodies do not process calories from different sources the same way; the source of calories matters.”
“Low-fat diets as a way to lose weight have been disappointing and, in reality, may be worse than no diet at all.”
