Good Calories, Bad Calories: Fats, Carbs, and the Controversial Science of Diet and Health

Gary Taubes

Anchor Books, 2008 - Health & Fitness - 609 pages

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. In this groundbreaking book, award-winning science writer Gary Taubes shows us that almost everything we believe about the nature of a healthy diet is wrong.

What people are saying

LibraryThing Review

User Review  - deldevries - LibraryThing

Dense and full of details. Excellent book to chew on a bit at a time. Attacks much of the purported common sense of nutrition. Points out where science has been either ignored or over generalized without considering alternative explanations.

LibraryThing Review

User Review  - brikis98 - LibraryThing

This is probably one of the most important books to read regarding what we eat. It presents some incredibly compelling and convincing evidence for why the "conventional wisdom" on diet is flat out ...

Contents

• I: vii
• III: xxiv
• IV: xxv
• V: 18
• VI: 38
• VII: 56
• VIII: 82
• X: 83
• XI: 94
• XII: 116
• XIV: 130
• XV: 147
• XVI: 172
• XVII: 180
• XVIII: 189
• XIX: 198
• XX: 220
• XXI: 221
• XXII: 244
• XXIII: 262
• XXIV: 284
• XXV: 297
• XXVI: 305
• XXVII: 319
• XXVIII: 347
• XXIX: 368
• XXX: 396
• XXXI: 417
• XXXII: 440

About the author

Gary Taubes is a contributing correspondent for Science magazine and a contributing editor at Technology Review. He has written about science, medicine, and health for Science, Discover, The Atlantic Monthly, The New York Times Magazine, Esquire, Fortune, Forbes, and GQ. His articles have appeared in The Best American Science Writing three times. He has won three Science-in-Society Journalism Awards given by the National Association of Science Writers--the only print journalist so recognized--as well as awards from the American Institute of Physics and the American Physical Society. His book Bad Science: The Short Life and Weird Times of Cold Fusion was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Award. He was educated at
Harvard, Stanford, and Columbia.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Good Calories, Bad Calories: Fats, Carbs, and the Controversial Science of Diet and Health; Vintage Series
• Author: Gary Taubes
• Edition: reprint
• Publisher: Anchor Books, 2008
• ISBN: 1400033462, 9781400033461
• Length: 609 pages
• Subjects: Health & Fitness / Diet & Nutrition / Diets; Health & Fitness / Diet & Nutrition / Nutrition; Medical / Occupational & Industrial Medicine; Science / General