4 ms·

Is _Good Calories, Bad Calories_ not worth reading? I've started it and I'd be glad to stop reading if he's that wrong.

by zasz 16y ago

SwellJoe 16y ago
I don't know. I've read quite a bit of his stuff, including a number of excerpts from Good Calories, Bad Calories. Some of it is sensible; we, as a culture, do eat a lot of stuff that isn't actually food, and it makes it easy to overeat without ever feeling satisfied, and not eating those processed food-like items (which happen to be packed full of carbs in a lot of cases) would improve your health and probably reduce your waistline. If someone is choosing between eating a steak with some spinach on the side and eating a microwave-able dinner (even one from Lean Cuisine or Healthy Choice), I'm pretty sure the steak and spinach would be healthier. But, those aren't the only options. I'm pretty sure, from the non-Taubes/non-Atkins reading I've done, that you don't have to limit yourself to almost nothing but meat and eggs and a few vegetables to lose weight or be healthy, and following Taubes/Atkins guidelines might cause you to die early of heart disease or some of the cancers caused by animal proteins. Or, you might have other problems caused by missing out on a lot of great nutrients found in fruits (which the low-carb thing tends to lead to avoiding). Again, there's some pretty damning evidence that Atkins does not work for sustainable weight loss on a large scale. In short, I think it is a fad diet. Like most fad diets, you can lose weight on it, as long as it leads to consuming fewer calories. Like most fad diets, it is based on some sweeping generalizations pulled from a few highly selective bits of research. It's what happens when someone from the mainstream media writes about science. They don't qualify their statements enough, they make claims with absolute confidence when the science just isn't there. I've been pretty interested in food and diet lately, and the absolute best books I've read on the subject have been Michael Pollan's, The Omnivore's Dilemma and In Defense of Food. Both are utterly lovely. The claims it makes are humble, based on science (and tradition), and realistic. The main thing I've come away with from reading a huge variety of books and websites on diet and nutrition is that we shouldn't be eating about 80+% of the "food" you find at Safeway or Walmart or even Whole Foods and Trader Joe's (though the percentage is probably 70% of those stores). Most of what people eat these days simply isn't food and humans shouldn't be consuming it, and certainly not in the quantities most Americans eat it. If it says "Low-fat" or "Low-carb" on the label, it should probably be on the "do not eat this, it isn't food" list. This, I guess, means that we can all agree that there are good calories and bad calories...I just think Taubes doesn't have much science to back up what he believes constitute the good and bad calories; there's too much good science that conflicts with his claims. The science seems to indicate that nutrient-dense low-energy foods are the best foods to eat, in general. Whole foods seem to deliver the best balance of nutrition per calorie, while processed foods tend to have all the good stuff processed right out and some bits and pieces crammed back in via fortification. A lot of those non-foods are very high in carbs; but picking one macro-nutrient to be the devil and ignoring all the other important facets of food is probably a bad idea. And, one final, snarky point: Taubes is pudgy. Looks to me like he's carrying around at least 20 extra pounds. I'm not sure I want to take diet advice from a guy who needs to lose more weight than I do (I'm carrying about 10 extra pounds, and it's nowhere near as noticeable as Taubes spare tire).
tygorius 16y ago
As you can tell from your own reading, it's not the "fad diet" book that SwellJoe claims. The science is pretty clear on how insulin works, for instance. Most of Taubes' critics mistake his case for restricting carb intake as being synonymous with the Atkins diet, which isn't really the case. (Taubes' wife mocks Atkins as "meat boy".) The logic seems to be: Atkins is icky, Taubes promotes restricting carbs like Atkins, he must be icky too, the science be damned.
- SwellJoe 16y ago
  "The science is pretty clear on how insulin works, for instance." Is it? This is actually one of my core problems with Taubes. The science on insulin is nowhere near clear from what I can tell. Insulin can regulate hunger, may trigger storage of energy (or may not, depending on many confounding factors), and may be helpful in weight loss (or may not be). Taubes' assertion that insulin is well-understood, and his cherry-picking of studies to "prove" his assertion, is one of my problems with his work. Again, I'm not saying he's wrong. I'm just saying his assertions about what we know and don't know about diet are not as well-supported as his books and articles claim. It's easy to find conflicting studies of nearly every point he considers "proven". This is problematic, if I'm going to change the way I live and eat in dramatic ways. I'm not going to do that just because some guy recommends it, when there are many more qualified people recommending other practices. He is, in short, a popular science writer, doing what popular science writers do. He might be a good popular science writer. He might even have the right idea about many things, but you don't get to pick and choose which studies you use to come to your conclusions based on how much they agree with your position. "The logic seems to be: Atkins is icky, Taubes promotes restricting carbs like Atkins, he must be icky too, the science be damned." And your logic seems to be: Taubes is awesome and I agree with him, so he must be right, science be damned. Here's my point, which I think you've missed along the way: Science doesn't yet know all the answers. Taubes definitely doesn't know all the answers. I don't know all the answers. And you don't know all the answers. But, there are a large number of scientists who disagree strongly with Taubes, making me think I should take his advice with a grain of salt.
  - tygorius 16y ago

Is _Good Calories, Bad Calories_ not worth reading? I've started it and I'd be glad to stop reading if he's that wrong.

by zasz 16y ago

Is _Good Calories, Bad Calories_ not worth reading? I've started it and I'd be glad to stop reading if he's that wrong.

I don't know. I've read quite a bit of his stuff, including a number of excerpts from Good Calories, Bad Calories. Some of it is sensible; we, as a culture, do eat a lot of stuff that isn't actually food, and it makes it easy to overeat without ever feeling satisfied, and not eating those processed food-like items (which happen to be packed full of carbs in a lot of cases) would improve your health and probably reduce your waistline. If someone is choosing between eating a steak with some spinach on the side and eating a microwave-able dinner (even one from Lean Cuisine or Healthy Choice), I'm pretty sure the steak and spinach would be healthier. But, those aren't the only options. I'm pretty sure, from the non-Taubes/non-Atkins reading I've done, that you don't have to limit yourself to almost nothing but meat and eggs and a few vegetables to lose weight or be healthy, and following Taubes/Atkins guidelines might cause you to die early of heart disease or some of the cancers caused by animal proteins. Or, you might have other problems caused by missing out on a lot of great nutrients found in fruits (which the low-carb thing tends to lead to avoiding). Again, there's some pretty damning evidence that Atkins does not work for sustainable weight loss on a large scale. In short, I think it is a fad diet. Like most fad diets, you can lose weight on it, as long as it leads to consuming fewer calories. Like most fad diets, it is based on some sweeping generalizations pulled from a few highly selective bits of research. It's what happens when someone from the mainstream media writes about science. They don't qualify their statements enough, they make claims with absolute confidence when the science just isn't there. I've been pretty interested in food and diet lately, and the absolute best books I've read on the subject have been Michael Pollan's, The Omnivore's Dilemma and In Defense of Food. Both are utterly lovely. The claims it makes are humble, based on science (and tradition), and realistic. The main thing I've come away with from reading a huge variety of books and websites on diet and nutrition is that we shouldn't be eating about 80+% of the "food" you find at Safeway or Walmart or even Whole Foods and Trader Joe's (though the percentage is probably 70% of those stores). Most of what people eat these days simply isn't food and humans shouldn't be consuming it, and certainly not in the quantities most Americans eat it. If it says "Low-fat" or "Low-carb" on the label, it should probably be on the "do not eat this, it isn't food" list. This, I guess, means that we can all agree that there are good calories and bad calories...I just think Taubes doesn't have much science to back up what he believes constitute the good and bad calories; there's too much good science that conflicts with his claims. The science seems to indicate that nutrient-dense low-energy foods are the best foods to eat, in general. Whole foods seem to deliver the best balance of nutrition per calorie, while processed foods tend to have all the good stuff processed right out and some bits and pieces crammed back in via fortification. A lot of those non-foods are very high in carbs; but picking one macro-nutrient to be the devil and ignoring all the other important facets of food is probably a bad idea. And, one final, snarky point: Taubes is pudgy. Looks to me like he's carrying around at least 20 extra pounds. I'm not sure I want to take diet advice from a guy who needs to lose more weight than I do (I'm carrying about 10 extra pounds, and it's nowhere near as noticeable as Taubes spare tire).

tygorius 16y ago

As you can tell from your own reading, it's not the "fad diet" book that SwellJoe claims. The science is pretty clear on how insulin works, for instance. Most of Taubes' critics mistake his case for restricting carb intake as being synonymous with the Atkins diet, which isn't really the case. (Taubes' wife mocks Atkins as "meat boy".) The logic seems to be: Atkins is icky, Taubes promotes restricting carbs like Atkins, he must be icky too, the science be damned.

SwellJoe 16y ago
"The science is pretty clear on how insulin works, for instance." Is it? This is actually one of my core problems with Taubes. The science on insulin is nowhere near clear from what I can tell. Insulin can regulate hunger, may trigger storage of energy (or may not, depending on many confounding factors), and may be helpful in weight loss (or may not be). Taubes' assertion that insulin is well-understood, and his cherry-picking of studies to "prove" his assertion, is one of my problems with his work. Again, I'm not saying he's wrong. I'm just saying his assertions about what we know and don't know about diet are not as well-supported as his books and articles claim. It's easy to find conflicting studies of nearly every point he considers "proven". This is problematic, if I'm going to change the way I live and eat in dramatic ways. I'm not going to do that just because some guy recommends it, when there are many more qualified people recommending other practices. He is, in short, a popular science writer, doing what popular science writers do. He might be a good popular science writer. He might even have the right idea about many things, but you don't get to pick and choose which studies you use to come to your conclusions based on how much they agree with your position. "The logic seems to be: Atkins is icky, Taubes promotes restricting carbs like Atkins, he must be icky too, the science be damned." And your logic seems to be: Taubes is awesome and I agree with him, so he must be right, science be damned. Here's my point, which I think you've missed along the way: Science doesn't yet know all the answers. Taubes definitely doesn't know all the answers. I don't know all the answers. And you don't know all the answers. But, there are a large number of scientists who disagree strongly with Taubes, making me think I should take his advice with a grain of salt.
- tygorius 16y ago