Soon after I posted my review of Why We Get Fat And What to Do About It, I emailed Gary Taubes to ask if he had time for a written interview. Gracious as always, he agreed to answer a long list of questions. Here’s our Q & A.
Fat Head: How soon after finishing Good Calories, Bad Calories did you decide to write Why We Get Fat?
Gary Taubes: Well, even before I was finished with GCBC, I was discussing with my editor my suspicions that what the world wanted — or at least what my friends wanted — was the 200-page, intelligent person’s guide to weight loss. But I couldn’t write that one first, and I felt compelled to cover the subject at length and in detail. The result was GCBC.
About a year after the book came out, it became clear it wasn’t going to do what I had hoped, which was reach a large audience and induce the public-health types to take the ideas seriously, because they weren’t going to read a 500-page book that implied they got everything wrong. So that’s when Why We Get Fat started to come together in my head.
Fat Head: Since you’re a science wonk, did you find it easier to write for the scientific community, which was your intended audience for GCBC, or for the general public, which is the intended audience for Why We Get Fat?
Gary Taubes: I find it easier to write long than short and always have. I want to give all the details and all the supporting information, and I’ve never had the gift of synopsizing. That said, the first two-thirds of WWGF was relatively easy to write because it was based on these lectures I’d been giving, during which I’d honed a lot of the material — not unlike comedians (as you’ll understand) who hone their stand-up routines.
Fat Head: In Why We Get Fat, you managed to take some pretty complex science that you’d already presented in GCBC and make it much easier to understand. So as a writer, you must’ve been constantly asking yourself “How can I explain this to a general audience?” What was your process for simplifying the science without dumbing it down? What was the answer to “How do I make this simpler?”
Gary Taubes: Again, a lot of this came from the lectures. And indeed, in an ideal world the lectures would last 90 minutes to two hours, but when you give grand rounds at a med school, for instance, you have to limit it to 45 minutes to leave time for questions. So I was being forced to think in terms of simpler and shorter. Then I knew that I wanted this book to be small and tight and readable, and I did everything I could to make it that way. And yes, finally, as a science writer, I’m always asking myself, “How can I explain this to a general audience? How can I simplify the science to the point that it is barely noticeable?” In fact, often the best science writing has no noticeable science at all.
Fat Head: A lot of people found Good Calories, Bad Calories intimidating because it was heavy on science. In interviews, you’ve explained that you had to decide at some point if GCBC was going to be written for a lay audience or a medical-academic audience, and you chose the medical-academic audience because they’re the ones handing out the bad dietary advice. So … now that you’ve written a book that’s simple enough for the average high-schooler to understand, do you think more doctors and nutrition researchers will finally grasp what you’ve been trying to tell them?
Gary Taubes: Short answer, yes. I think this book will be harder to ignore than GCBC, and the better it sells, the more difficult it will become to ignore.
The idea was someone would say to them, “Have you seen this book that debunks calories-in-calories-out?” And they would sigh, or roll their eyes, and say no. Or maybe someone would give them a copy of the book, and get the same response. Then they’d throw it in their briefcases, take it on an airplane, open it up in a moment of intense irritation or because they forgot to bring other airplane reading with them, and find themselves drawn in first by the anecdotes — Hilde Bruch and all the fat children of New York in 1934 — and then by some of the ways of thinking about obesity that they’d simply never considered before.
And a lot of these people are excruciatingly smart; they’ve just never had reason to question their beliefs before on why we get fat, as I hadn’t until about eight years ago. Given the opportunity to do it, I think they will be open to the ideas in the book.
Fat Head: One of the opening sections of Why We Get Fat is titled Thermodynamics For Dummies. Was that directed at me personally? Because that would hurt my feelings.
Gary Taubes: Well, I wasn’t going to mention it if you didn’t, but…
Fat Head: Wow, look at the time! I’m sure you probably have to go, so —
Gary Taubes: No, no, just kidding. It just seemed like the obvious title.
Fat Head: Okay, good. You studied physics at Harvard, earned a master’s in aerospace engineering from Stanford, and pretty much lived in a physics lab for a year while researching a book about particle physics. And yet all over the internet, I see critiques of Good Calories, Bad Calories in which the reviewers claim you failed to consider the laws of thermodynamics while writing it. Did you, in fact, forget everything you learned about physics once you became interested in nutrition science?
Gary Taubes: Well, I was thinking the same thing a couple of years ago when I was on the Larry King Show and Jillian Michaels, the trainer from The Biggest Loser, gave me a lecture on thermodynamics — her version — on national television. I remember sitting there at the time thinking, “I did study physics at a pretty good college; I think I understand this.” And I didn’t even respond to Jillian because I didn’t know what to say. I was literally speechless. Surely, one of the high points of my life to date.
Fat Head: I found those critiques rather odd, considering that Good Calories, Bad Calories includes an entire chapter titled Conservation of Energy, in which you wrote at length about the laws of thermodynamics and how nutritionists misinterpret them. How do you deal with criticisms of your books coming from people who clearly haven’t read them?
Gary Taubes: The knee-jerk response is always to assume that the people who criticized the book haven’t read it, and I try to avoid the knee-jerk response. Still, I always want to ask them, “Did you read the book?” Because it usually seems pretty clear they didn’t. It happens all the time.
I have a chapter in the new book discussing how it is quite possible that anyone who loses weight on a diet does so because they reduce either the quantity of carbohydrates consumed or improve the quality — even on low-fat, low calorie diets this is likely to be the case, counter-intuitive as that may seem.
Then I get a review in the health section of the New York Times from a physician, and she ends the review with this pat response that humans come in wonderful variations, so some diets work for some people and other diets work for others. And I wanted to call her up and ask, “Did you read the chapter on why diets work? Do you really have information that I don’t have that makes you certain what you’re saying is true? Because it very well may not be …”
Fat Head: In addition to having a background in physics, you’re a rather tall and athletic person who played college football. Do you ever want to just haul off and smack some of these people?
Gary Taubes: I boxed, too, as an amateur. Painful, short, ugly career. That said, I wouldn’t be human if I didn’t have that response, but I try to let it pass. My wife is always telling me it’s counterproductive, and she’s probably right.
Fat Head: Just hypothetically, then, let’s say Jillian Michaels decides to give you another lecture on the laws of thermodynamics and the debate escalates into a physical confrontation. Who should I bet on if there’s some sideline action? You’re bigger, but she has a background in martial arts, so I think it could go either way.
Gary Taubes: Bet on Jillian. She kicks me once in my arthritic knee — old football injury, no cartilage — I go down in a heap, and that’s the end of it. Now if I were still in my 20s, I’d say take the points.
Fat Head: Why We Get Fat includes a fair amount of new information, so obviously you’re continuing to study the latest research. Have you changed any of your beliefs or conclusions since Good Calories, Bad Calories was published? If so, what?
Gary Taubes: I’m not actually studying the latest research as much as I’d like. I have two small children now, and they tend to take time away from obsessive research. I have come to realize that some of the details I discussed in GCBC were incorrect, and I’m sure I’ll learn about more as time progresses. Other than that, nothing much of significance has changed. That could either mean that the data continue to support what I say, as I believe they do, or that I’m so close-minded that I’m not paying attention to the evidence refuting my ideas.
Fat Head: Since you claim in your books and speeches that much of the conventional wisdom about nutrition and health is wrong, you of course attract rather a lot of criticism and have many detractors. Do you ever lie awake at night worrying that any of your fundamental conclusions will turn out to be wrong?
Gary Taubes: Yes. But not as often as I lie awake at night worrying about other things. Three to five in the morning, I can worry about just about anything and often do.
Fat Head: You were inspired to begin the journalistic investigation that eventually led to Good Calories, Bad Calories when a researcher told you, “If you really want to see some bad science, you should look into some of this public health stuff.” Dr. John Ioannidis, who has been on the research faculty of top-flight universities and also written extensively about flaws in research, says that as much as 90 percent of the medical research doctors rely on is flawed. Why is so there so much bad science out there? How are the bad scientists getting away with it?
Gary Taubes: Actually, there’s an old line I like from a physicist and philosopher of science named John Ziman, who said something to the effect that 90 percent of the stuff in the scientific journals is wrong and 90 percent of the stuff in the textbooks is right, and the process of science is distilling the truths from the former into the latter.
So in part it’s the nature of science in general. It’s really hard and it takes quite a while for reliable knowledge to mature. In part, as I suggest in GCBC, science was a European invention and I think there was a culture of science — of knowing how to think, how to be relentlessly skeptical and rigorous in trying to tear down one’s own hypotheses — that evolved in Europe but never crossed the Atlantic after the Second World War.
In physics this culture did make it across, because we needed the European physicists to build atom bombs and hydrogen bombs and compete with the Soviets during the cold war. Back when I used to write about physics, the physicists would say that the best thing that ever happened to American science was Hitler, because he chased all these brilliant scientists out of Europe and over to America. But they were embraced in physics. All the great physicists of the mid-20th century were European émigrés, or virtually all of them.
In medicine and public health, we wanted little to do with them and, as a result, the way post-war researchers approach science in these fields has little of the rigor necessary to get the right answer. There’s also a problem that medical researchers and public-health researchers are dealing with human beings ultimately as their subjects, and if they want to do rigorous experiments to find out, for instance, what foods will maximize or minimize our chances of living to 100, the necessary experiments are ludicrously expensive. So the people in these fields long ago rationalized why they didn’t have to do these experiments, and why they take leaps of faith instead. But good science happens to be incompatible with leaps of faith. This is why I often wonder if good science can ever be done in these fields.
Fat Head: Even though there’s some new information in Why We Get Fat, the alternative hypothesis you present is pretty much the same as in Good Calories, Bad Calories: carbohydrates drive up insulin, and elevated insulin drives fat accumulation. Your critics often point to populations who eat a high-carb diet — Asians, Kitavans, etc. — as evidence that you’re wrong, since people in those populations don’t generally become fat or diabetic.
Gary Taubes: Well, sometimes I just want to haul off and smack–
Fat Head: Careful, your wife may read this.
Gary Taubes: Oops. Sorry. As I discuss in GCBC, it’s quite likely that sugar — by which I mean a roughly 50-50 mixture of glucose and fructose — is the trigger that first sets off insulin resistance and then the vicious cycle from eating all carbs that leads to obesity, diabetes, etc. And these populations — Southeast Asians, in particular; I’m not really familiar with the Kitavan story — ate excruciatingly little sugar. This, to me, is a primary piece of evidence arguing that sugar may be the necessary trigger. That would explain why when the Asians come to the U.S., they do start succumbing to these metabolic disorders. They start eating more sugar.
Another possible explanation is that the carbs these populations consumed, until very recently, were low glycemic index carbs — not highly refined rice and wheat. There are many variables that could explain it, which is one of the reasons observational evidence like this is so potentially confusing. You have to do clinical trials — i.e., experiments. It’s the only way to get to the truth.
Fat Head: My reply to people who tell me the Kitavans live on starches and therefore I can too is that I’m not a Kitavan. Do you think heredity plays a role in how well we tolerate carbohydrates? Since most people of European extraction can easily digest milk while 90 percent of Asians are lactose intolerant, it’s clear there were different dietary adaptations in different areas of the world.
Gary Taubes: Yes. Heredity and the length of time that a population has been exposed to the carbohydrates in the diet is an important factor, and I discuss this in GCBC. It’s an idea that Peter Cleave gets a large part of the credit for.
Fat Head: Dr. Robert Lustig insists it’s fructose that makes us insulin resistant, not starchy foods. If he’s right, then it was the Coca-Cola and Captain Crunch that turned me into a fat kid, not the mashed potatoes. But as an adult, I’ve avoided sugar yet found that starches most definitely make me gain weight. So assuming for the sake of argument that Lustig is correct, would you say that once fructose has done the damage, we lose our tolerance for carbohydrates in general? If so, why?
Gary Taubes: That’s exactly the possibility I’m discussing. Once you become insulin resistant, your body responds to carbs by secreting more insulin. So it is quite possible — and laboratory work backs this up — that sugar causes the initial insulin resistance because of the effect of the fructose on the liver. So if we never had sugar, we’d be able to eat the other carbs with relative impunity. But being possible doesn’t mean it’s true. I suspect it is, but I’m not sure exactly how this can be tested.
And I agree with you: the world is full of obese and diabetic people who know enough not to eat sugar, but remain obese and diabetic. I could avoid sugar and go back to eating starches and put on 20 pounds of fat effortlessly. I’ve done it in the past — distant past. So I don’t buy the idea that avoiding sugar is enough to make an obese person lean again. And the people I know who believe that all tend to be somewhat plump despite their beliefs. In fact, I recently heard Dr. Lustig give a talk in San Francisco, and he acknowledged that he still has a weight problem, but doesn’t know what to do about it. Hmmm….
Fat Head: Have you come across any evidence that starches can turn people into fat diabetics without fructose being part of the diet?
Gary Taubes: It’s tricky. Typically consumption of sugar, white flour and starchy vegetables all tend to go hand-in-hand. So it’s hard to tease out this one. I suspect beer could, but I don’t know if even beer drinkers who don’t eat sugar tend to become diabetic or not. What we’d need is a population of white-flour eaters who didn’t eat any sugar at all. If we could find such a thing, naturally, then we’d have some idea.
Fat Head: Dr. William Davis tells his blog readers that wheat seems particularly adept at promoting weight gain. Did you come across anything in your research to support that idea? I know for me, wheat jacks up my blood sugar far beyond what the glycemic index or glycemic load charts would predict.
Gary Taubes: Again, it’s possible since most of us eat wheat as refined flour, and refined flour was historically identified as a dietary evil, linked to obesity, at least. So in a sense we’re talking about the same thing but coming at it from different directions. My problem with singling out wheat is that then you ignore sugar and the other various and sundry foods that can promote weight gain. I certainly hear from enough people telling me how their health problems went away when they gave up wheat and gluten in particular. Although they typically go on to say they also, perhaps a little later in the game, gave up sugar and other refined, easily digestible carbs as well.
Fat Head: In Why We Get Fat, you wrote that some people might have to give up dairy products and nuts to lose weight. Dr. Mike Eades has also mentioned that nuts and cheese seem to inhibit weight loss in some low-carb dieters. What is it about those foods that can stall weight loss? Is it just that they’re so calorically dense, or do they produce a higher insulin response than their low carbohydrate content would suggest?
Gary Taubes: I think the caloric density thing is nonsense. Remember, I’m trying to get every last one of us away from thinking in terms of calories as the variable of interest. What we want to know is whether these foods stimulate insulin secretion, or cause insulin resistance, or have some other effect on the storage of fat in the fat tissue or the oxidation of fatty acids by other tissues in the body. So nuts still have carbs in them, and for some people they might contain too many carbs. Same is true for nut butters.
Dairy products can stimulate insulin secretion beyond what you would expect from the carbohydrate content. I don’t know if this is true of cheese because I’ve never seen data on this, but it is possible. And some cheeses could be better than others — hard cheeses, for instance, may be better than soft cheeses.
Fat Head: You wrote something in Why We Get Fat that I think every frustrated dieter needs to hear: the proper diet will help us become as lean as we can be, but not necessarily as lean as we’d like to be. Once we become fat, is there a limit to how much fat we can lose without starving away our lean tissue? If so, what’s the barrier to mobilizing and burning those last 10 or 20 pounds of excess fat?
Gary Taubes: Simple answer, I don’t know. But it’s obvious that not every woman can have the body of an Angelina Jolie, regardless of how few carbs they eat. And not every man can have the body or the body-fat percentage of, I don’t know, a Matthew McConaughey, one of these actors who’s always taking his shirt off in movies.
That’s for starters. Some of us are wired to have more body fat than others from the get-go. Then I think when we grow up in a carb-rich environment, some degree of chronic damage is done to the way we partition fuel. Maybe our muscle tissue never quite loses its insulin resistance, or our fat tissue remains more insulin sensitive than it would be had we never seen carbs. Maybe our pancreas secretes a little too much insulin.
It’s hard to tell, but the way I describe it is this: if I grew up in a hunter-gatherer environment — and my mother did as well, because there are effects that are passed from mother to child through the uterus — I’d probably weigh around 175 pounds, even as an adult. Had I stopped eating carbs in my late teens, I might naturally weigh about 190 or 200, which was my football weight in high school. The fact that I not only kept eating carbohydrates into my forties but gorged on them during the low-fat, you-can’t-get-fat-if-a-food-doesn’t-have-fat-in-it years of the late 1980s and early 1990s means the best I can do now, even eating virtually no carbs at all, is about 220. And there’s nothing I can do to go lower, short of starving myself. Semi-starving myself doesn’t work. I tried that long ago.
Fat Head: So what’s the message for those people? Lose what you can and focus on being healthy, as opposed to obsessing with squeezing into a size-8 dress?
Gary Taubes: Precisely.
Fat Head: One of the anti-Taubes articles going around the internet claims that we don’t need insulin to store fat, and that insulin is an appetite suppressant. Can we store any significant amount of fat without insulin? If so, why do untreated type 1 diabetics waste away?
Gary Taubes: Short answer, probably not. We don’t need insulin to burn glucose for fuel, but if we don’t have insulin, we don’t store fat.
Fat Head: In Why We Get Fat, you also stated that elevated insulin in the brain suppresses appetite. Since so many obese people have high levels of circulating insulin, why aren’t their appetites suppressed? Is there a difference between the effects of insulin in the brain and insulin in the bloodstream?
Gary Taubes: That’s the key point. A few years ago I was interviewing the director of the Joslin Diabetes Center, and I asked him what the role of insulin was in obesity, and he said its role was to suppress appetite in the brain. And it does. Three researchers at the University of Washington spent 10 to 15 years trying to convince people that insulin had this role. They had injected insulin into the cerebral spinal fluid of primates and it did indeed suppress appetite.
The problem is these people succeeded so well in their crusade that the rest of the community — this guy at the Joslin among them — simply forgot about what insulin does in the body, which is to promote fat accumulation and energy storage. And it makes perfect sense that a hormone that responds to eating will work to store fuel in the body while it also works, secondarily, to tell the brain that fuel is coming in and eating can cease in a bit. That’s the kind of feedback loop you find all over homeostatic systems. But the fundamental issue is that in the body, insulin promotes fat accumulation and that’s where the problem is.
Fat Head: To lose weight, you recommend that we get most of our calories from protein and fat. Some critics of your work point out that all kinds of foods produce a high insulin response after meals, including beef. But when I read your books, it seems obvious that you’re attributing excess fat accumulation to chronically elevated insulin, not the temporary rise after meals. If meat and pasta both raise my insulin after eating, why does pasta lead to higher overall levels of insulin over time, while meat doesn’t?
Gary Taubes: The idea is that pasta is digested far more quickly, and so it leads to higher initial insulin spikes and that these — at least in theory — may in turn result in short-term insulin resistance, and maybe even long-term. Moreover, beef isn’t just protein even though chefs now like to talk about meat and fish being the “protein course” on the reality TV shows like Top Chef — which I now find myself watching habitually once the children finally go to sleep.
Even lean meat is likely to be 50 percent fat by calories, and the fat seems to be the primary determinant of insulin response in mixed meals. This was a result that Jenny Brand Miller in Australia recently published. It was her work that showed a decade ago that you can get substantial insulin secretion from eating lean beef, actually very lean beef. But in 2009 she published an analysis of mixed meals and the message was the more fat, the fewer carbohydrates, the less the insulin secretion. So, as I say over and over, for all intents and purposes carbs are driving insulin levels — the pasta — and fat and protein together, in real foods, are not.
Fat Head: Do you have a sense yet of the response to Why We Get Fat? Is this the book that will catch on with general public, or is it too soon to tell?
Gary Taubes: I think it will catch on, but it will probably take longer than I’d like. It’s doing well, but I’m fighting the “what’s he saying in WWGF that he didn’t say in GCBC” problem, just as with GCBC, media types always wanted to know what was different in that book than in my 2002 article What If It’s All Been A Big Fat Lie? And then, of course, the low-fat diet proponents wanted to reject that article on the basis that it was just Atkins reheated, and so not interesting. Now I’m dealing with the Atkins-reheated-three-times-over problem, and it’s not easy to overcome.
The point I’ve been trying to make is that, yes, this is an old story, but it happens to be the right story. And the way our media works, an old story is an old story, period. Still, I’ve recently been hearing from researchers in the field, some pretty big-name people, who seem to be fans, and I’d never expected it. So I’m getting lecture invitations from universities that would have crucified me in 2003. This is a good sign.
Fat Head: I was mentally exhausted when I finished Fat Head, so I didn’t like it much when people would immediately ask me, “What are you going to do next?” Seems a bit like picking a boxer up off the mat and asking, “Who you got in mind for your next fight?” But since you live a long way from Tennessee and can’t just haul off and smack me, I’m going to ask anyway: Now that this book is finished, what will you be doing next?
Gary Taubes: Well, mental exhaustion seems to be a chronic condition when you never take a vacation, as I don’t, and when you have small children, as I’ve already mentioned. So that’s kind of a given. But I am getting funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation at the moment to write a book about sugar and high fructose corn syrup, and I’m about halfway through the research. I hope to start writing in about a year and hand it in maybe nine months after that. We’ll see how it goes — and how the aforesaid mental exhaustion and small children affect the estimated time of delivery.
Fat Head: Thank you, Gary. It was a long list of questions, and I really appreciate you taking the time to answer them.
For those of you who didn’t know already, Gary also started his own blog, so be sure to check it out.
If you enjoy my posts, please consider a small donation to the Fat Head Kids GoFundMe campaign.
Gary Taubes accomplished writing Good Calories, Bad Calories – a monumental project involving loads of research and well thought out writing- so I doubt blogging will faze him, 500 comments per post or not.
I sure he keeps at it.
just what do you eat, can you eat nuts if so what kind?
I eat meat of all kinds, vegetables, seafood, some low-sugar fruits, occasional bits of sweet potato, usually in my wife’s stews. For nuts, we buy the big jars at Costco because they’re not roasted in nasty frankenfats. The ingredient list for the jar of almonds is: almonds, salt.
I’ve been running across some really interesting stuff about traditional diets in the WAPF-paleo and straight paleo blogospheres. Here’s some stuff that I think contributes to the differences between, say, Kitavans and us.
1. Industrial food vs. traditional food, that one’s a no-brainer.
2. Higher intake of fat-soluble vitamins, as well as minerals, among the traditional groups. I’m just now, with my mere laywoman’s level of knowledge about this stuff, beginning to tease out and understand the relationship between fat-soluble vitamins and metabolism, not that the official pool of knowledge on that subject is anywhere near complete. Just yesterday I was reading about how K2 supports the production of osteocalcin, and when I looked that up on Wikipedia, the article said osteocalcin’s also been implicated in metabolism and specifically insulin sensitivity. K2 as an indirect type 2 diabetes preventative? Possibly. Looks like it, at any rate.
3. Carbohydrate intake comes from tubers primarily, and some fruits, rather than from grain, and particularly not from wheat. Wheat is strongly tied, on a statistical level (as Denise Minger showed), to chronic disease. It doesn’t grow well in the tropics.
4. Fat intake amongst traditional groups is much higher, even among the Kitavans (they get a lot of theirs from coconut), which sort of ties in with #2.
and…
5. I suspect *choline* intake is higher amongst traditional groups. The best sources of choline seem to be animal innards, particularly liver, and eggs. I’m seeing some stuff in the blogs about choline being important in the signaling that moves fatty acids out of the liver into the bloodstream to be burned for energy. Fatty liver’s strongly predictive of diabetes and a whole host of other chronic disease ills.
Plus there are other factors that apparently make a difference. Traditional communities do not rely as much on electric lighting; having an absolute division between night and day seems to help sleep patterns, which in turn preserves long-term health. Also, we know exercise helps with insulin sensitivity even if it doesn’t help with weight loss per se, and traditional communities do a lot more manual labor than developed nations do, as a general rule. Even the really primitive groups that do maybe three hours of real work per week still move around more because they don’t have TV and don’t have the Internet and prefer to do a lot more socializing and playing.
I’ve gotten to the point that I’m getting itchy about the way I’m living, after reading all this stuff. Just going to bed at night is disturbing to me because there’s light coming in the windows (I live in a city) and I haven’t yet procured blackout curtains to block it. We caught the tail end of Hurricane Ivan back in 2008, which knocked out power to most of the city thanks to our aging urban forest. (Found all the deadwood at least!) That was nearly a week’s worth of actual darkness at night, which has become a novel experience for me. The only time I get anywhere near it is when I go home to visit family in rural Louisiana. I miss seeing stars in the night sky and having to get my eyes used to the darkness. And I feel sad for all the people who have no rural family to go visit and to whom it never occurs to buy blackout curtains–they’re missing so much more than they know.
I wonder when, if ever, we in the developed world will get to live like real people again.
The point about wheat is a good one. When I eat carbs now, they’re usually from vegetables and sweet potatoes.
In regards to Ricardo’s comment about animals not having to restrict foods, human beings are animals, and in a more natural habitat we don’t have to restrict foods either. The longtime evolutionary reality for human beings is that while we eat a wider variety of foods because we gather them instead of growing them, in the aggregate we have access to fewer foods because we don’t have grocery stores and a worldwide food distribution network. The foods we *can* access are foods with which our tribes have long experience, meaning we’ve sussed out the best methods available to us for gathering/hunting, processing, and preparation of those foods in a way that supports adult health, prenatal nutrition and child development.
Only isolated groups still possess those advantages and they are disappearing fast. The only defense against our current situation is to make stringent rules for ourselves about which foods are permissible and which are not, and then *abide* by those rules, rather like keeping kosher or halal. Kosher and halal laws are religiously derived, and while I’m sure more than a few of Tom’s readers love God in their own way, surely we love ourselves enough to care about how our bodies turn out as well. Easier said than done sometimes, I realize–I struggle with this myself.
just what do you eat, can you eat nuts if so what kind?
I eat meat of all kinds, vegetables, seafood, some low-sugar fruits, occasional bits of sweet potato, usually in my wife’s stews. For nuts, we buy the big jars at Costco because they’re not roasted in nasty frankenfats. The ingredient list for the jar of almonds is: almonds, salt.
I’ve been running across some really interesting stuff about traditional diets in the WAPF-paleo and straight paleo blogospheres. Here’s some stuff that I think contributes to the differences between, say, Kitavans and us.
1. Industrial food vs. traditional food, that one’s a no-brainer.
2. Higher intake of fat-soluble vitamins, as well as minerals, among the traditional groups. I’m just now, with my mere laywoman’s level of knowledge about this stuff, beginning to tease out and understand the relationship between fat-soluble vitamins and metabolism, not that the official pool of knowledge on that subject is anywhere near complete. Just yesterday I was reading about how K2 supports the production of osteocalcin, and when I looked that up on Wikipedia, the article said osteocalcin’s also been implicated in metabolism and specifically insulin sensitivity. K2 as an indirect type 2 diabetes preventative? Possibly. Looks like it, at any rate.
3. Carbohydrate intake comes from tubers primarily, and some fruits, rather than from grain, and particularly not from wheat. Wheat is strongly tied, on a statistical level (as Denise Minger showed), to chronic disease. It doesn’t grow well in the tropics.
4. Fat intake amongst traditional groups is much higher, even among the Kitavans (they get a lot of theirs from coconut), which sort of ties in with #2.
and…
5. I suspect *choline* intake is higher amongst traditional groups. The best sources of choline seem to be animal innards, particularly liver, and eggs. I’m seeing some stuff in the blogs about choline being important in the signaling that moves fatty acids out of the liver into the bloodstream to be burned for energy. Fatty liver’s strongly predictive of diabetes and a whole host of other chronic disease ills.
Plus there are other factors that apparently make a difference. Traditional communities do not rely as much on electric lighting; having an absolute division between night and day seems to help sleep patterns, which in turn preserves long-term health. Also, we know exercise helps with insulin sensitivity even if it doesn’t help with weight loss per se, and traditional communities do a lot more manual labor than developed nations do, as a general rule. Even the really primitive groups that do maybe three hours of real work per week still move around more because they don’t have TV and don’t have the Internet and prefer to do a lot more socializing and playing.
I’ve gotten to the point that I’m getting itchy about the way I’m living, after reading all this stuff. Just going to bed at night is disturbing to me because there’s light coming in the windows (I live in a city) and I haven’t yet procured blackout curtains to block it. We caught the tail end of Hurricane Ivan back in 2008, which knocked out power to most of the city thanks to our aging urban forest. (Found all the deadwood at least!) That was nearly a week’s worth of actual darkness at night, which has become a novel experience for me. The only time I get anywhere near it is when I go home to visit family in rural Louisiana. I miss seeing stars in the night sky and having to get my eyes used to the darkness. And I feel sad for all the people who have no rural family to go visit and to whom it never occurs to buy blackout curtains–they’re missing so much more than they know.
I wonder when, if ever, we in the developed world will get to live like real people again.
The point about wheat is a good one. When I eat carbs now, they’re usually from vegetables and sweet potatoes.
In regards to Ricardo’s comment about animals not having to restrict foods, human beings are animals, and in a more natural habitat we don’t have to restrict foods either. The longtime evolutionary reality for human beings is that while we eat a wider variety of foods because we gather them instead of growing them, in the aggregate we have access to fewer foods because we don’t have grocery stores and a worldwide food distribution network. The foods we *can* access are foods with which our tribes have long experience, meaning we’ve sussed out the best methods available to us for gathering/hunting, processing, and preparation of those foods in a way that supports adult health, prenatal nutrition and child development.
Only isolated groups still possess those advantages and they are disappearing fast. The only defense against our current situation is to make stringent rules for ourselves about which foods are permissible and which are not, and then *abide* by those rules, rather like keeping kosher or halal. Kosher and halal laws are religiously derived, and while I’m sure more than a few of Tom’s readers love God in their own way, surely we love ourselves enough to care about how our bodies turn out as well. Easier said than done sometimes, I realize–I struggle with this myself.
Great stuff. Two comments. Firstly, while Gillian Michaels is not my first choice for giving a thermodynamics lecture, it does seem that The Biggest Loser operates largely on a calories in calories out basis, with some evidently amazing results. Secondly, what about that professor who recently lost weight on a Twinkie diet, precisely to demonstrate the calories in/out approach? Personally, at 65 I maintain my high school weight by considering only calories.
And, btw, I am a physics Ph.D!
No one denies that if you starve people and force them to ignore their hunger, they’ll lose weight. But they’ll also end up losing muscle mass and likely experience a slowdown in metabolism, which means they won’t lose weight according to the neat and tidy 1 lb. fat = 3500 calories equation. Many, if not most, of the contestants regained a big share of the weight once they no longer had Jillian Michaels starving them and horsewhipping them into exercising at unnatural levels.
The professor who lost weight on the so-called Twinkie diet cut calories, yes. He also, by his own admission, cut his carbohydrate consumption by nearly half. He only averaged about 150 carbs per day.
Boy do I agree with the comment about the ill-chosen title of GT’s new book. It has stopped me from buying it for friends who could definitely use the information, and the only reason I had the courage to read it out in public was because I’m now slim (after following the counsel of Dr. Eades, Gary Taubes and you!) They should make an alternate plain brown cover for the book with a title like “Rug Weaving for Fun and Profit.”
Great stuff. Two comments. Firstly, while Gillian Michaels is not my first choice for giving a thermodynamics lecture, it does seem that The Biggest Loser operates largely on a calories in calories out basis, with some evidently amazing results. Secondly, what about that professor who recently lost weight on a Twinkie diet, precisely to demonstrate the calories in/out approach? Personally, at 65 I maintain my high school weight by considering only calories.
And, btw, I am a physics Ph.D!
No one denies that if you starve people and force them to ignore their hunger, they’ll lose weight. But they’ll also end up losing muscle mass and likely experience a slowdown in metabolism, which means they won’t lose weight according to the neat and tidy 1 lb. fat = 3500 calories equation. Many, if not most, of the contestants regained a big share of the weight once they no longer had Jillian Michaels starving them and horsewhipping them into exercising at unnatural levels.
The professor who lost weight on the so-called Twinkie diet cut calories, yes. He also, by his own admission, cut his carbohydrate consumption by nearly half. He only averaged about 150 carbs per day.
Boy do I agree with the comment about the ill-chosen title of GT’s new book. It has stopped me from buying it for friends who could definitely use the information, and the only reason I had the courage to read it out in public was because I’m now slim (after following the counsel of Dr. Eades, Gary Taubes and you!) They should make an alternate plain brown cover for the book with a title like “Rug Weaving for Fun and Profit.”
Great interview, Tom. I think Gary answered the question of fructose very well. Robert Lustig tends to favor fiber a lot when eating a lot of carbs because it does help offset some of the negative effects. But I’m sticking with Gary in that I find fat, unless it’s trans fat, to be a more reliable source of energy since carbs from the get go in high amounts are naturally toxic for us because they still have to go through the liver for detoxification even with fiber, while fat does not because us mammals are meant to use fat, especially saturated fat in high amounts. Now for some heavy cream and lard.
Clark
Even Lustig agrees that perhaps people who’ve damaged themselves with fructose need to cut back on carbs in general.
Great interview, Tom. I think Gary answered the question of fructose very well. Robert Lustig tends to favor fiber a lot when eating a lot of carbs because it does help offset some of the negative effects. But I’m sticking with Gary in that I find fat, unless it’s trans fat, to be a more reliable source of energy since carbs from the get go in high amounts are naturally toxic for us because they still have to go through the liver for detoxification even with fiber, while fat does not because us mammals are meant to use fat, especially saturated fat in high amounts. Now for some heavy cream and lard.
Clark
Even Lustig agrees that perhaps people who’ve damaged themselves with fructose need to cut back on carbs in general.
Regarding the point about protein causing an increase in insulin without increasing fat storage:
According to my college Human Physiology textbook (published 25 years ago), protein also stimulates the release of glucagon from the pancreas.
The following are some of the effects of glucagon:
– decreases uptake of glucose and fatty acids from the blood by fat tissue.
– decreases synthesis and storage of triacylglycerol (fat) from glucose and fatty acids in fat tissue.
– increases breakdown of triacylglycerol (fat) stored in fat tissue.
– increases release of fatty acids and glycerol from fat tissue.
(the results of the above effects are: increased availability of fatty acids for use as energy in cells; increase of glycerol in the blood; and a net decrease in stored fat – i.e. we get thinner).
– increases release of amino acids from protein in muscle tissue (causes a net decrease in muscle tissue, which is why a low-carb diet should have plenty of protein).
– increases release of lactate and pyruvate from glycogen stored in muscle tissue.
– increases the conversion of amino acids (released from muscle), lactate and pyruvate (released from glycogen in muscle), glycerol (released from fat) and glycogen (stored in liver) into glucose in the liver, which is released into the blood.
– increases the conversion of fatty acids (released from fat) into ketones in the liver, some of which are used for energy in the liver and the rest released into the blood.
– decreases the use of glucose for energy in cells, except nerve cells.
– increases the use of fatty acids for energy in cells, except nerve cells.
– increases the use of ketones for energy in all cells.
Eating protein causes the pancreas to release both insulin and glucagon. Without the glucagon, if we ate a meal with a lot of protein and no carbohydrate, the increase in insulin caused by the protein could drive blood sugar to dangerously low levels. Glucagon balances the effect of insulin on serum glucose levels. It also makes us skinnier.
That was a lot of typing. Thank you.
Regarding the point about protein causing an increase in insulin without increasing fat storage:
According to my college Human Physiology textbook (published 25 years ago), protein also stimulates the release of glucagon from the pancreas.
The following are some of the effects of glucagon:
– decreases uptake of glucose and fatty acids from the blood by fat tissue.
– decreases synthesis and storage of triacylglycerol (fat) from glucose and fatty acids in fat tissue.
– increases breakdown of triacylglycerol (fat) stored in fat tissue.
– increases release of fatty acids and glycerol from fat tissue.
(the results of the above effects are: increased availability of fatty acids for use as energy in cells; increase of glycerol in the blood; and a net decrease in stored fat – i.e. we get thinner).
– increases release of amino acids from protein in muscle tissue (causes a net decrease in muscle tissue, which is why a low-carb diet should have plenty of protein).
– increases release of lactate and pyruvate from glycogen stored in muscle tissue.
– increases the conversion of amino acids (released from muscle), lactate and pyruvate (released from glycogen in muscle), glycerol (released from fat) and glycogen (stored in liver) into glucose in the liver, which is released into the blood.
– increases the conversion of fatty acids (released from fat) into ketones in the liver, some of which are used for energy in the liver and the rest released into the blood.
– decreases the use of glucose for energy in cells, except nerve cells.
– increases the use of fatty acids for energy in cells, except nerve cells.
– increases the use of ketones for energy in all cells.
Eating protein causes the pancreas to release both insulin and glucagon. Without the glucagon, if we ate a meal with a lot of protein and no carbohydrate, the increase in insulin caused by the protein could drive blood sugar to dangerously low levels. Glucagon balances the effect of insulin on serum glucose levels. It also makes us skinnier.
That was a lot of typing. Thank you.
Just wanted to point out the part of Tom and Garys exchange where tom said “doesnt insulin decrease hunger in the brain?” This part is key to obesity but it doesnt get focused on here.
As they said, WHen you eat that carby treat, insulin is released that makes your brain feel satiated. Satiety is a feeling of pleasure. it is why some people cant feel full until they eat that dessert, no matter how much roast beef they ate. It is why in most of China, a bowl of plain rice is served as desert (not during the meal). Carbs give you that satisfied feeling, when insulin triggers satiety in the brain.
The problem is, like anything else you consume to trigger a pleasurable feeling in the brain, carby food is addictive. People say Im addicted to chocolate, or Im addicted to ice cream. The dont say Im addicted to fatback, or Im addicted to spinach.
unfortunately, all the money in the ag/food business comes from getting people hooked on addictive foods made out of the cheapest feedstock on earth: grain.
Just wanted to point out the part of Tom and Garys exchange where tom said “doesnt insulin decrease hunger in the brain?” This part is key to obesity but it doesnt get focused on here.
As they said, WHen you eat that carby treat, insulin is released that makes your brain feel satiated. Satiety is a feeling of pleasure. it is why some people cant feel full until they eat that dessert, no matter how much roast beef they ate. It is why in most of China, a bowl of plain rice is served as desert (not during the meal). Carbs give you that satisfied feeling, when insulin triggers satiety in the brain.
The problem is, like anything else you consume to trigger a pleasurable feeling in the brain, carby food is addictive. People say Im addicted to chocolate, or Im addicted to ice cream. The dont say Im addicted to fatback, or Im addicted to spinach.
unfortunately, all the money in the ag/food business comes from getting people hooked on addictive foods made out of the cheapest feedstock on earth: grain.
on cheese n nuts. probably why some people see an insulin response when eating these foods is they tend to have a good deal of protein, and protein when combined with carbs, can multiple the carb effect of stimulating insulin response. so, if you eat a few ounces of cheese, and take in like 15g of protein and 7g of carbs, the carbs may produce the insulin you would expect from 20+ carbs, because of the combination. studies have shown that when carbs and protein are combined, the insulin response can be doubled and even tripled.
I’ve read that dairy products produce a higher insulin level than can be explained by the glycemic load or protein content. From an evolutionary standpoint, it makes sense. Milk is what the young-uns of a species drink while growing rapidly, and insulin acts as a growth hormone, among its other functions.
on cheese n nuts. probably why some people see an insulin response when eating these foods is they tend to have a good deal of protein, and protein when combined with carbs, can multiple the carb effect of stimulating insulin response. so, if you eat a few ounces of cheese, and take in like 15g of protein and 7g of carbs, the carbs may produce the insulin you would expect from 20+ carbs, because of the combination. studies have shown that when carbs and protein are combined, the insulin response can be doubled and even tripled.
I’ve read that dairy products produce a higher insulin level than can be explained by the glycemic load or protein content. From an evolutionary standpoint, it makes sense. Milk is what the young-uns of a species drink while growing rapidly, and insulin acts as a growth hormone, among its other functions.
Loved it! We (Mike & Kat) just did a pretty similar QA movie that our readers requested about the time it takes to exercise to lose weight. You can see it here if you want to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BlXBd5m6bc ~Mike and Kat from FBC
Loved it! We (Mike & Kat) just did a pretty similar QA movie that our readers requested about the time it takes to exercise to lose weight. You can see it here if you want to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BlXBd5m6bc ~Mike and Kat from FBC
ASP—Acylation Stimulating protein, this hormone shoves FAT into FAT CELLS without Carbs present or insulin present. Hence the body has the power to convert & break down to fat ANYTHING that is not used up. Remember fat gain just like fat loss is a process & does not happen overnight. Fat Head & Taubes leave out ASP, simply because it shoots to pieces the house of cards that 1)carbs make u fat 2)insulin alone drives fat into fat cells 3) calories never count
I don’t believe the effects of ASP are nearly as dramatic as insulin, which both encourages fat accumulation and inhibits the release of fatty acids from the cells, as reading any biochemistry textbook would confirm. I’ve said from the beginning (including in Fat Head) that if you want to lose weight, you need to create a calorie deficit, but you also need to create a situation where hormones aren’t fighting you to keep the fat.
ASP—Acylation Stimulating protein, this hormone shoves FAT into FAT CELLS without Carbs present or insulin present. Hence the body has the power to convert & break down to fat ANYTHING that is not used up. Remember fat gain just like fat loss is a process & does not happen overnight. Fat Head & Taubes leave out ASP, simply because it shoots to pieces the house of cards that 1)carbs make u fat 2)insulin alone drives fat into fat cells 3) calories never count
I don’t believe the effects of ASP are nearly as dramatic as insulin, which both encourages fat accumulation and inhibits the release of fatty acids from the cells, as reading any biochemistry textbook would confirm. I’ve said from the beginning (including in Fat Head) that if you want to lose weight, you need to create a calorie deficit, but you also need to create a situation where hormones aren’t fighting you to keep the fat.
So what I am hearing is don’t eat carbs because you become as lean as your body will every allow you to be? For me while on almost zero carbs that’s about 20lb leaner (probably all water weight too) which still leaves me in the obese end of a BMI scale! The way I see it is why bother? My body does a pretty good job of regulating my weight at this level when I don’t try to diet. Not to mention that when I low carb my cholesterol HDL and LDL plus my trigs shoot through the roof. I’m not about to take some science paparazzi’s word that cholesterol doesn’t matter anyway.
Not to mention that potatoes give me the most extended fullness of any food bar none. A steak with 2 tbs coconut oil just doesn’t cut it.
Too many holes in your argument Taubes and I think a lot of us ex low carbers are just not buying it any more.
You want your HDL to shoot through the roof. High HDL is good. If your trigs are shooting through the roof on a low-carb diet, you’re the first case I’ve heard in which that happened.
Your HDL is supposed to be elevated. And you’ve been severely misinformed about LDL. It isn’t necessarily bad if it’s high. It’s bad if it’s high and your triglycerides are high as well (over 150 mg/dl)
This is because there isn’t one LDL. There’s pattern A and patter B, and a high Pattern A (result of eating protein and fat), is a GOOD thing. A high pattern B makes you likely to have CVD (heart attack/stroke).
The way you find out which LDL is elevated is to compare LDL to triglycerides. If the LDL is high and the triglycerides are low, the good LDL is elevated, and that’s NOT BAD. If you have a high LDL AND a high triglyceride count, then your VLDL is high, and you are at serious risk of CVD.
To summarize:
High LDL + high triglycerides = BAD, because it means your pattern B is high.
High LDL + low triglycerides = GOOD, because it means LDL pattern A is the cause of the high levels, not pattern B.
So if your LDL is elevated and your triglycerides aren’t, don’t worry about it. If the triglycerides are high, though, cut back on your carbs.
So what I am hearing is don’t eat carbs because you become as lean as your body will every allow you to be? For me while on almost zero carbs that’s about 20lb leaner (probably all water weight too) which still leaves me in the obese end of a BMI scale! The way I see it is why bother? My body does a pretty good job of regulating my weight at this level when I don’t try to diet. Not to mention that when I low carb my cholesterol HDL and LDL plus my trigs shoot through the roof. I’m not about to take some science paparazzi’s word that cholesterol doesn’t matter anyway.
Not to mention that potatoes give me the most extended fullness of any food bar none. A steak with 2 tbs coconut oil just doesn’t cut it.
Too many holes in your argument Taubes and I think a lot of us ex low carbers are just not buying it any more.
You want your HDL to shoot through the roof. High HDL is good. If your trigs are shooting through the roof on a low-carb diet, you’re the first case I’ve heard in which that happened.
Your HDL is supposed to be elevated. And you’ve been severely misinformed about LDL. It isn’t necessarily bad if it’s high. It’s bad if it’s high and your triglycerides are high as well (over 150 mg/dl)
This is because there isn’t one LDL. There’s pattern A and patter B, and a high Pattern A (result of eating protein and fat), is a GOOD thing. A high pattern B makes you likely to have CVD (heart attack/stroke).
The way you find out which LDL is elevated is to compare LDL to triglycerides. If the LDL is high and the triglycerides are low, the good LDL is elevated, and that’s NOT BAD. If you have a high LDL AND a high triglyceride count, then your VLDL is high, and you are at serious risk of CVD.
To summarize:
High LDL + high triglycerides = BAD, because it means your pattern B is high.
High LDL + low triglycerides = GOOD, because it means LDL pattern A is the cause of the high levels, not pattern B.
So if your LDL is elevated and your triglycerides aren’t, don’t worry about it. If the triglycerides are high, though, cut back on your carbs.
I think you’re not being entirely honest, anyway.
People don’t get as full from junk like potatoes (and it’s so much junk that it’s filth) like they do from meat and eggs. That’s just fact.
The stomach processes meat entirely in the stomach. Carbs aren’t digested fully until the colon, and sometimes not even then. Hence why you don’t find steak in your stools, but corn–all the stinking time.
This means that your stomach will get “swamped” from meat, and will shut off your satiety center. “That’s enough of the eating, you’re full.”
With carbs, works on some, but not much, and passes that and everything else carb to the intestines. And then your stomach is saying, “Is that all? More! Give me more! I’m starving!”
Carbs DO NOT light up your satiety center like protein and fat does. It can’t. Not enough of it stays in the stomach long enough to trigger the satiety command. So it sends back the signal, “More! I need more!”
This is why vegans graze so much. They have to, because they’re starving inside if they don’t. Gorillas do this, too. They spend HOURS of every day, eating, eating, eating. Carnivores and carnivore-dominant omnivores don’t do that. They eat once or twice a day (or less!) Carnivorous snakes eat a lot less than that, and don’t need to eat anything else in between. Why? Meat is filling! If it wasn’t, they’d be eating all the time, like gorillas and cows (who need to eat so much that they eat what they didn’t completely digest!).
All carnivores eat far less frequently than herbivores. Why? Meat is filling!
I think you’re not being entirely honest, anyway.
People don’t get as full from junk like potatoes (and it’s so much junk that it’s filth) like they do from meat and eggs. That’s just fact.
The stomach processes meat entirely in the stomach. Carbs aren’t digested fully until the colon, and sometimes not even then. Hence why you don’t find steak in your stools, but corn–all the stinking time.
This means that your stomach will get “swamped” from meat, and will shut off your satiety center. “That’s enough of the eating, you’re full.”
With carbs, works on some, but not much, and passes that and everything else carb to the intestines. And then your stomach is saying, “Is that all? More! Give me more! I’m starving!”
Carbs DO NOT light up your satiety center like protein and fat does. It can’t. Not enough of it stays in the stomach long enough to trigger the satiety command. So it sends back the signal, “More! I need more!”
This is why vegans graze so much. They have to, because they’re starving inside if they don’t. Gorillas do this, too. They spend HOURS of every day, eating, eating, eating. Carnivores and carnivore-dominant omnivores don’t do that. They eat once or twice a day (or less!) Carnivorous snakes eat a lot less than that, and don’t need to eat anything else in between. Why? Meat is filling! If it wasn’t, they’d be eating all the time, like gorillas and cows (who need to eat so much that they eat what they didn’t completely digest!).
All carnivores eat far less frequently than herbivores. Why? Meat is filling!
Good interview. Please consider doing more of these. Reading a conversation is entertaining and informative. There’s no shortage of talented and intelligent people who would be glad to talk to you.
That’s a good suggestion. I really enjoy listening to podcasts — something I can do while walking, cleaning up my office, etc. — but sometimes I’d rather read the information.
Ouch … I’m one of those who’ve criticized Taubes for a less-than-great explanation of the Asians & Kitivans etc … guess I’ll take that smack! But I appreciate your asking him the question; it’s great to see him address it so well here.
Just promise you won’t kick him in that arthritic knee. I have one of those too, and it’s not fun.
I know you work out because you mention it on a regular basis, but are you focusing on building a lot of strength? That seems to give the most results in terms of body composition (after diet). I just noticed you and Gary both mention being at higher weights than you’d prefer.
I have run into this more with women since they tend to be more critical of those last 5-10 lbs, but once they start a strength-oriented program, they start to see their stomach flattening.
Health and longevity are important, but sometimes a little vanity can be very motivating.
Yes, I do a slow-burn program. My strength has gone up quite a bit.
Fab interview. As I was reading through the comments I thought to myself, Tom remember about not arguing with idiots, and then you said it yourself. LOL.
Like Lori, I’m finding I’m applying more critical thinking in other areas of my life too, although not everyone sees it that way. I suspect that some people who are too polite to say so think I am gullible because I am getting my information from the internet. (OK with me since I have implemented my new knowledge to lose 30lbs after 20 years of failing to do so despite following the advice of my doctor and the government).
By the way, got the DVD yesterday and watched it immediately. Really loved it. I had seen clips on Youtube but it is much better seeing it from beginning to end.
Thank you for ordering the DVD. Yes, I’m trying to remember my rule about arguing with idiots.
I’m reading WWGF and it’s excellent. I love GT’s writing style. My biggest complaint with the book, however, is the title! I have a number of colleagues who would benefit so much from this book that I’d love to put a copy in their hands. The trouble is, we’re not really friends enough that I can hand them a book that’s entitled “Why We Get Fat” without the risk of offending them!
One of them is my boss! Talk about a career limiting move!
Ha, I hadn’t thought of that.
You know this kinda no way for human beings to live. All these high fat low carb diets are so complicated they always have you juggle one macro-nutrient. I think we all should eat more vegetables some fruit and healthy fats like avocados and avoid all or most of the worst stuff of westernized civilization like trans fat and to some degree saturated fats and refined carbs and other processed sugars like coke
I eat meat, fish, eggs, nuts, vegetables, a wee bit of low-sugar fruit, and an occasional tuber. Considering that’s pretty much what humans ate for most of our time on earth, I don’t see how it’s “no way for humans to live.”
My Korean colleague said in a few years since he came to US,
he gained 20 lb just by eating American food. he said he is not the only. we conclude American food simply make people fat!
I think Americans actually eat more carbs than Asians (if you count all the sugary snack people tend to forget (soft drinks, juices, chips, cookies, crackers, donuts, candy bars, ice cream, etc)
Traditional Asian diets really had none of those. Sadly, now they’re catching up w/ civilized diseases as well.
regards,
We eat more carbs overall and a LOT more sugar.
Of course I forgot this one bit…
Considering nuts and cheese, I have often seen that when I live off storage, i.e. mostly vegetarian (cheese/quark and peanuts, nuts, almonds) I seem to lose energy and become somewhat passive after a while. Of course this is anectdotical evidence. Could also be that when I get out more, I tend to buy meat.
Anyway, there is a chemical called creatine, which is something like a catalysator for burning stuff better. Bodybuilders and athletes take it. It comes from fresh (not conserved) meat and fish, though our liver makes it in small amounts, also. Maybe that could explain it.
Could be.
Nice interview. Seems like a lot his critics are missing the big picture. Taubes’ work has exposed those of us interested to long forgotten information that seems to be more correct. Whether the exact little details are right or not seems to miss the point. Why have we been so fixated on fat when carbs doesn’t seem to require the convoluted explanations? In other words, his work has made us question whether we’ve been barking up the wrong tree. It’s unreasonable to expect Taubes to have all the answers. Digging up the history and showing us there’s another way to think about the problem is quite a contribution.
He’s done the world a favor. Someday, we may look back and point to his books as the beginning of the end of the misguided anti-fat campaign.
I will definitively get this book to add it in my collection. But I’m searching good nutrition, diets documentaries do you recommend any good one? besides fat head off course lol
CJ Hunt is producing one called (I think) In Search of the Perfect Human Diet. In the meantime, I liked My Big Fat Diet very much:
http://www.mybigfatdiet.net/
Felix, in some people, a cortisone shot sends their blood sugar over the moon. (My aunt, a type 2 diabetic, had a reading of over 500 from her last one.) That, as you know, requires…insulin.