Good Calories, Bad Calories

Those in positions of power who feel they know better than the common rabble have ignored vast tombs of data reaching back decades if not a century due to WWII. The science done by nutritionists turns out to be as bad as that cited by macroeconomists. Millions of Americans have died from 'diseases of western civilization', and millions more are currently suffering from metabolic syndrome. A calorie from a carbohydrate affects the human body's metabolism (fat storage or usage) differently from a gram of fat or protein. Fat storage is to a large extent hormonally (insulin) driven. This social engineering (the governments food pyramid), has resulted in the early death of millions, to say nothing of the painful slow death of millions more sipping sugar water daily. Had we as children shunned sugar, we as adults may very well have been able to eat potatoes without turning into them. Read this book and you will never look at a loaf of bread or a government committee the same way. So well researched, his index of references in GCBC are thicker than some books. Mr. Taubes should be given the Nobel Prize not for discovering something new under the Sun, but for most prolifically exposing that which has so expertly been obfuscated over a century by those suffering from 'cognitive dissonance'? If you've ever struggled with weight, reading this book will make your blood boil because those in a position to know better willfully turned a blind eye and condemned you for sloth and gluttony. WARNING: This book is not recommended for non Libertarians. If your sipping sugar water, avoiding sunshine, and voting red team or blue, don't come within one-hundred feet of a copy of GCBC, your head will explode.

This book can save your life. Fantastic review of the science on energy, nutrition and health by a top science reporter. Talking to elite marathoners, I find the winners live this way. My overweight patients are finally improving with the information I reviewed with this book. As an MD/PhD it was disheartening to realize the conventional nutrition information I was taught was so poorly founded in fact. A brief synopsis of this is on the NY Times titled "Is Sugar Toxic"

As a chiropractor, I did not find this technical, but I did find it well researched enough to use it as a guide for my patients. he also does not make diet recommendations. He simply asks for balanced research that answers the questions posed.

It sounds terribly cheesy to say that, but it did. Taubes' research is spot-on, and his writing, while quite technical, is excellent. I highly recommend this book to anyone, but especially to those who (like me) have struggled with weight gain throughout their lives. It will inform you, it will enlighten you, and it will certainly anger you at the misinformation that we as consumers are fed (if you'll excuse the pun!).