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| Good Calories, Bad Calories | 
 enlarge | Author: Gary Taubes
Publisher: Knopf
Category: Book
List Price: $27.95
Buy New: $13.00
You Save: $14.95 (53%)
Buy New/Used/Collectible from $9.68
Avg. Customer Rating:  (203 reviews)
Sales Rank: 29747
Format: Roughcut
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 640
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.1
Dimensions (in): 9.4 x 6.6 x 1.7
ISBN: 1400040787
Dewey Decimal Number: 613.283
EAN: 9781400040780
ASIN: 1400040787
Publication Date: September 25, 2007
Release Date: September 25, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 Tired of the so-called experts....to each his own November 8, 2008
5 out of 27 found this review helpful
I had been eyeing this book for a while as I do try to keep an open mind about these things. So I read a friends copy. It was indeed a fascinating read...but no matter what you read....and there were alot of 5 star reviews here telling you to do this, do that....jump on the low-carb, anti bread, rice etc. bandwagon.....but the odd thing is.....look at the countries who diet is all about rice and veggies...and how HEALTHY they have been until our Fast Food joints enter the picture....and then you start to see fat all over the world. I did the Atkins plan about 5 years ago...lost 60 pounds...fairly quickly too. My body seemed to thrive on it..and contrary to what some reviews said...I was never hungry. BUT....and there always is one.....I started getting dizzy, started feeling sickly.....and ended up in the hospital....because on those extreme hard core diets like Atkins....you dont eat friut, you dont each healthy breads etc. I had a friend who had lost over 100 pounds on a low carb bragging how she hadn't had a piece of fruit or bread for over a year. And frankly I have to say...ANY diet or weight loss plan that FORBIDS a certain food...is not ever going to be ultimately healthy. My body shut down...completely...and my thyroid did as well. My doctors attributed it to being so obessesed with low carb...to eventually hurting my health. Now when I was following that regime, I was its staunchest supporter....but in restospect...after being so sick, in the hopsital and fighting a broken thyroid....I realized that the truth of the matter is that we are always looking for some fix. When the saying Everything in Moderation....is what is really the key. It took me almost two years and a weight gain of what I had lost PLUS more--to get my body healthy again, and get my thyroid working again. And one of my doctors--who also studied nutrition and was indeed a specialist...just came out and said...we have to find something that is FOR THE LONGTERM and that in his studies, those who tried to do the Atkins type diet...severe low carb...would evetually have tremendous aging issues down the road. It certainly aged me...it was not healthy. And now I eat fresh veggies, I eat chicken, fish and yes now and then red meat....but I also eat fresh fruits....any kind...I eat whole wheat bread and yes the evil potato now and then and I do eat rice too once and a while. I feel great....I have now lost over a hundred pounds...I look so much better. I do not say that one food is bad or good. Obviously I don't go walking around eating candy and cake and ice cream....but I will not forbid or banish any food from my world. I really try to watch the sugar and salt in my diet. But I will have a piece of cake or a candy bar once and a while..maybe every month or so..but the key is to NOT eat like that for most of your diet...and to get right back into healthy eating the next meal. There was some book out a few years ago by yet another author whos name escapes me, Julia Havy or something....but her gimmic was VICE BUSTING..she banned ice cream from her diet...and I watched her on some show and I thought wow-this woman is way too severe, it was her way or no way...and those types of people scare me, and are NOT healthy...they are too controlling and never open-minded which is never good. It truly is COMMON SENSE but we americans are always looking for the answer, a quick fix....I have to bust my vice and all...the fanatics out there selling health..its sad. They make money off our fears and desperation when we don't want to do the work ourselves. I have learned to eat in moderation. To exercise a half hour a day...to drink plenty of water and try (although its not always that easy) to get as much sleep as possible as SLEEP is just as important as diet in how we age and take care of ourselves. This book was interesting...but I really am tired of books that preach one regime over another....I just follow a healthy heart type diet. And to learn why I eat or reach for the so-called 'bad' foods, what emotions are playing a part in my choices. The mind is just as important as the body and most of us tend to ignore that. But I know I will never ever again go the low carb or nothing route...it was the worst thing I ever have done for my health. Or follow any plan that forbids you certain foods or tells you that you have to bust those vices or eles. Everything in moderation...and use common sense. You really dont need another book to know that. Go online...go to the American Heart Association site, or the Diabetes sight or another of the free sites out there and make your own way. Save your money, use your head. There is plenty of good free information out there for you to make up your own mind..and regain your health.
 Great in depth journalism on nutritional politics November 8, 2008
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
This book is not a health/nutritional book per se, but more like journalistic muckracking. If you are looking for dietary advice, this is not exactly the right book because you have to wade through a lot of historical and sociological material to find the nutritional gems of indirect advice.
The title is a bit misleading. Due to its in-depth journalistic investigative nature, I would title this "The Politics of Nutritional Advice." Taubes goes into great detail, leaving no nutritional stone unturned, as he covers the history of the anti-fat crusade and dispels the myths of dietary cholesterol causing blood cholesterol.
At the end of this book you will realize that obesity is not due to excess caloric intake and/nor a deficiency in exercise. Carbs are much more to blame because they (unlike fat) affect insulin release, the main hormone involved in fat storage. Gaining weight (or not) has much more to do with a symphony of hormones than calories.
You will also learn that there is a great deal of politics involved in determining which nutritional theories get funded (as is the case with just about any science). As he states on p. 51-52: "Scientists were believed to be free of conflicts if their only source of funding was a federal agency, but all nutritionists knew that if their research failed to support the government position on a particular subject, the funding would go instead to someone who did."
Taubes didn't go into the benefits of the Omega 3s, which are proven to be highly beneficial in weight reduction. While he uses the example of the traditional Eskimos as being cancer-free, he overlooked the causes: 1) They were 100% raw fooders and 2) they ate a great deal of omega 3 fatty acids (which fish are high in).
 A serious study of food and health. November 7, 2008
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
We get conflicting messages about what to eat and how to lose weight from sources that we would like to trust, like doctors and the government. This book shows that there has been some good research done on what makes us fat and sick over the last hundred or so years. But for some reason the research has not been treated as part of a science where we try to increase our understanding a bit at a time. Instead, as Taubes shows, the fight over food has been more like politics than science and we are all suffering from confusion. Taubes makes a case that when viewed scientifically the research seems to point to some clear answers that deserve more attention, specifically the problem of carbohydrates in our diet. I wish the medical community would take the issues as seriously as he does. I know that the information he provides has helped me to lose weight for the first time.
A healthy helping of good nutritional advice November 5, 2008
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
Have you ever wondered what drives the health industry in touting what is correct to eat for a good healthy lifestyle? Have you ever wondered why common knowledge tells us that fat is bad, carbohydrates are good, and that to have a healthy weight you should eat less and exercise more? In Good Calories, Bad Calories, author Gary Taubes tried to give answers to these questions, as well as showing how this advice may not be right.
The book is divided into three parts:
--Part one, The Fat-Cholesterol Hypothesis, looks at the effects of reducing fat, as well as the role the rise of awareness of cholesterol and heart disease has played on diet in the last few decades.
--Part Two, The Carbohydrate Hypotheses, shows readers how the Western diet slowly moved from one with more meat and fat in the late nineteenth century to one with more of an emphasis on breads and other carbohydrates. In this section, the author discusses the rise of refined carbohydrate use in meals, and how those are causing problems with both a rise in diabetes and obesity.
--Part Three: Obesity and the Regulation of Weight, talks about hunger, different diets, and how they work or don't with a person's metabolism to help them lose weight or to hinder weight loss.
As a layperson, I had a hard time with this book because author Gary Taubes gives his readers a lot of (sometimes it felt like too much) information on food, on nutrition, on different health concerns such as heart disease, diabetes, and the rise in obesity. His background as a science writer shows with the completeness of the information given. I did find that the information given aimed at a lower glycemic diet with its higher protein and less refined carbohydrates very interesting, as well as the fact that diets promoting such eating habits were not new in the sixties when Dr. Atkins first started promoting his diet.
I believe this would be an excellent book for anyone interested in finding out more about the various diet trends and advice given through the past decades.
Armchair Interviews agrees.
 Awful, awful, awful - never gets to the point November 3, 2008
2 out of 35 found this review helpful
What a load of rubbish. I read this book in half an hour - ended up skimming it because it was so dull and because I could not make head nor tail of it. All the writer does is spew facts and data from study after study - he never sums up or gets to the point. Half the book is taken up with an afterword, an epilogue, a biography and the index!
I wish I'd seen his list of ten conclusions before I'd bought it - that would've been enough for me. The list, by the way, is on page 454! (The preceding 453 pages are gibberish).
I bought the book mainly because the reviews/accolades on the front and back cover are so good. Never again!
Do not waste your money!
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