I recently discovered the podcast EconTalk and have been going through its archives, listening to episodes of interest. In November of 2011, the host interviewed one Gary Taubes, author of Good Calories, Bad Calories: Fats, Carbs and the Controversial Science of Diet and Health, on the subject of "fat, sugar, and scientific discovery". The description drew me in, as it appeared the author would be addressing the discredited connection between fatty diets and heart trouble. I have read of this in Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food, but Pollan as an author seems hostile toward science and so I've been wanting to read from another author on that subject.
The interview is extensive, spanning some eighty minutes, and more substantial than I imagined. The dismissal of a connection between high fat diets and heart attacks doesn't trouble me, because I've never been one to choose foods on a "low-fat" basis. I used to think people bought this to avoid getting overweight, associating dietary fat with bodily fat. Though ignorant of the actual reason (the supposed connection between fat and heart trouble) for people's desire to eat low-fat diets, I dismissed the diet. Overeating in general makes you fat, I thought: if you didn't want to gain weight, you needed to watch calories in general, not 'fat'.
Imagine then my surprise and discomfort with Taubes dismissed this idea, that calories had anything to do with weight. The association between caloric intake and weight gain or loss is not something I invented: I've absorbed it growing up. Weight watchers "count calories", and in every book on personal health, nutrition, and diet that I've read, the authors would explain how overeating led to weight gain, and how the successful weight-loss program took into account both exercise and a diet that reduced calories.
Taubes says in the interview, and assumably writes as much in his book, is that the connection which exists between diabetes, obesity, cardiac trouble and other "diseases of civilization" is quite real, and very much concrete. However, instead of seeing them as interrelated symptoms of an increasingly sedentary lifestyle and a diet of fatty foods, he believes there's a singular risk factor underlying all of them: insulin resistance, which is caused by heavy use of sugar and refined carbohydrates in the western diet. I've begun to think for some time now that highly processed sugars and carbohydrates were dangerous; that started when I listened to a lecture called "Sugar: the Bitter Truth" and learned not only that high fructose corn syrup is a potentially dangerous sweetener that our bodies do not process well, but that it's used in much of the food we eat today. I can believe that excessive intake of sugar and carbos is dangerous, and I can believe that fat isn't as dangerous as I've been told -- and can even be healthy for us. But I find it different to accept the idea that calories, energy intake, has nothing to do with weight. Yet he cited five different studies which compared people on the traditional healthy weight-loss dietary approach (cutting back on calories and fat) with people on diets similar to the much-heralded Atkins diet of a few years back, who could "eat as many calories as the wanted", and according to him not only did those on the traditional diet lose less weight than their low-carbo/low-sugar counterparts, but those on the traditional diet maintained higher risk values for heart attack and such. This, to me, is staggering. How can there be no connection between calorie intake and weight? What happens when you eat in excess, if your body doesn't store the excess as fat?
It occurs to me that perhaps my trouble in digesting this news comes from it being presented in the form of a dichotomy, possibly false. Taubes sees the calorie/fat hypothesis and the insulin/sugar hypothesis as rivals, only one of which can be right. But is this necessarily the case?
I look on my own experience. In August I visited the doctor after having been increasingly sick for a few weeks. I was diagnosed with hypertension and decided to change my lifestyle to alter that. I began walking every day, I began avoiding salty foods, and started watching what I ate. I've since lost 110 pounds. I did that, I thought, by reducing calories and exercising. But it occurs to me that my experience doesn't rule out Taubes' sugar idea. Having to avoid salt means I tend to avoid foods high in it...which are often high in carbohydrates. My diet has become more reliant on fresh foods. I changed from white bread to wheat bread because whole wheat was better for my blood pressure; I stopped drinking sodas on a regular basis, and when I began noticing that I was losing weight, my intake of sugary foods became more sparing. So, my diet has reduced carbohydrates and sugar...but it has also reduced calories.
So, those who have read into this issue -- what do you think? Are calories are really as insubstantive as Taubes maintains, or are refined sugars and carbohydrates just an acute source of excess calories, given that not all calories are equal and that our bodies have varied nutrition needs?
The interview is extensive, spanning some eighty minutes, and more substantial than I imagined. The dismissal of a connection between high fat diets and heart attacks doesn't trouble me, because I've never been one to choose foods on a "low-fat" basis. I used to think people bought this to avoid getting overweight, associating dietary fat with bodily fat. Though ignorant of the actual reason (the supposed connection between fat and heart trouble) for people's desire to eat low-fat diets, I dismissed the diet. Overeating in general makes you fat, I thought: if you didn't want to gain weight, you needed to watch calories in general, not 'fat'.
Imagine then my surprise and discomfort with Taubes dismissed this idea, that calories had anything to do with weight. The association between caloric intake and weight gain or loss is not something I invented: I've absorbed it growing up. Weight watchers "count calories", and in every book on personal health, nutrition, and diet that I've read, the authors would explain how overeating led to weight gain, and how the successful weight-loss program took into account both exercise and a diet that reduced calories.
Taubes says in the interview, and assumably writes as much in his book, is that the connection which exists between diabetes, obesity, cardiac trouble and other "diseases of civilization" is quite real, and very much concrete. However, instead of seeing them as interrelated symptoms of an increasingly sedentary lifestyle and a diet of fatty foods, he believes there's a singular risk factor underlying all of them: insulin resistance, which is caused by heavy use of sugar and refined carbohydrates in the western diet. I've begun to think for some time now that highly processed sugars and carbohydrates were dangerous; that started when I listened to a lecture called "Sugar: the Bitter Truth" and learned not only that high fructose corn syrup is a potentially dangerous sweetener that our bodies do not process well, but that it's used in much of the food we eat today. I can believe that excessive intake of sugar and carbos is dangerous, and I can believe that fat isn't as dangerous as I've been told -- and can even be healthy for us. But I find it different to accept the idea that calories, energy intake, has nothing to do with weight. Yet he cited five different studies which compared people on the traditional healthy weight-loss dietary approach (cutting back on calories and fat) with people on diets similar to the much-heralded Atkins diet of a few years back, who could "eat as many calories as the wanted", and according to him not only did those on the traditional diet lose less weight than their low-carbo/low-sugar counterparts, but those on the traditional diet maintained higher risk values for heart attack and such. This, to me, is staggering. How can there be no connection between calorie intake and weight? What happens when you eat in excess, if your body doesn't store the excess as fat?
It occurs to me that perhaps my trouble in digesting this news comes from it being presented in the form of a dichotomy, possibly false. Taubes sees the calorie/fat hypothesis and the insulin/sugar hypothesis as rivals, only one of which can be right. But is this necessarily the case?
I look on my own experience. In August I visited the doctor after having been increasingly sick for a few weeks. I was diagnosed with hypertension and decided to change my lifestyle to alter that. I began walking every day, I began avoiding salty foods, and started watching what I ate. I've since lost 110 pounds. I did that, I thought, by reducing calories and exercising. But it occurs to me that my experience doesn't rule out Taubes' sugar idea. Having to avoid salt means I tend to avoid foods high in it...which are often high in carbohydrates. My diet has become more reliant on fresh foods. I changed from white bread to wheat bread because whole wheat was better for my blood pressure; I stopped drinking sodas on a regular basis, and when I began noticing that I was losing weight, my intake of sugary foods became more sparing. So, my diet has reduced carbohydrates and sugar...but it has also reduced calories.
So, those who have read into this issue -- what do you think? Are calories are really as insubstantive as Taubes maintains, or are refined sugars and carbohydrates just an acute source of excess calories, given that not all calories are equal and that our bodies have varied nutrition needs?
