Good Calories Bad Calories

I have wanted to read this book since 2007 and I very happy to have finally finished it. Taubes is a perfect blend of journalist and scientist and is able to tell the story of how we came to have the health recommendations that we do. He reviews the papers that tell us too much protein hurts the kidneys and finds the scientists that said saturated fats are bad for us. Spoiler: it's all lies!

Of course, I can't verify all of his findings, but he's done a great job of convincing me that he has read the relevant research and conducted his review in the best spirit of the scientific method. What was most fascinating is how he showed how the reputation and motivation of a researcher impacted their findings. Politics and ego seem to have undermined the facts. Furthermore, historical events such as WWII also seems to have disrupted trends in diet research. Without the war, the world would likely be much further along the low-carb path.

At the end of the day, carbs are bad for you. Perhaps not all of them, but most of them are. As far as Taubes can tell, insuligenic foods cause hearth disease, diabetes, cancer, obesity and Alheimer's. That is, every major modern killer is caused by over taxing the body's ability to process carbs. It's tough to hear this as a vegetarian, but oh well.

Lastly, I'll point to some really good notes somebody took while reading the book.

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