[Diabetes-Talk] Information I promised about the author Gary Taubes

[Gary Wunder]

This is written at the direction of the board, but I am copying the listserv
here for whatever help it may be for those wishing to learn more about the
ongoing dialogue about what we should eat and what we should avoid. 

 

Gary Taubes is not a scientist but a journalist. But, like any good
journalist, he is able to become a subject matter expert and then translate
what he has read and observed into information that the layperson can
understand. I have listed the books that he has available through the BARD
system first. I have also listed what is available on Bookshare. If you read
these books, it will soon become obvious to you that Gary Taubes believes
the idea that a high carbohydrate low-fat diet is bad science, and he uses
as evidence our attempt to practice this way of eating and the failure that
has resulted. He talks about how we came to believe that carbohydrates were
good and fat were bad. He discusses the trap into which science and
scientists can fall when inertia is in play, as it always is. Very often we
think of science as totally objective, but whether you can get a paper
published depends not only on the content of that paper but on whether the
publisher believes that you are a kook and that to publish you would do
great damage not only to his journal and reputation but even to your health.

 

Mr. Taubes also takes on the almost unquestioned idea that getting fat is a
matter of willpower and that the determining factor in whether or not we get
fat boils down to calories in, calories out. He devotes an entire book to
discussing why he believes that calories are only one part of why we gain
weight and betrays real irritation at the idea that how we look bodily
simply depends on willpower. He has little patience with scientists who
assert what he believes to be nonsense and tremendous empathy and concern
for those of us who believe that, to the extent that we have health
problems, they are to be laid directly at our doorstep or, perhaps more
correctly, at our kitchen table and our lack of willpower to push ourselves
away from it.. 

 

I have asked Gary Taubes if he will appear at our conference virtually. I
offer no speculation about whether he will come, so I am sending this
because I think it is good reading, whether or not we get to converse with
this gentleman directly. I don't ask that you read and embrace what he says,
only that you read it with an open mind and with the possibility that he may
well be right, partially right, or simply trying to wake us up to the idea
that we need to keep digging. Whether you end up buying his theories on how
we should eat, you will benefit from a good look at science and hopefully
make a commitment to yourself to be open-minded, to question what you think
you know, and to listen before you judge. This is the evolution that Gary
Taubes has helped me go through, and it serves me as I look hard to
understand different people and experiences that do not parallel my own but
are nevertheless of tremendous value in trying to be a good citizen of the
world.

 

 

* The Case Against Sugar

* The Case for Keto: Rethinking Weight Control and the Science and Practice
of Low-Carb High-Fat Eating

On Bookshare:

The Case Against Sugar Gary Taubes 

Good Calories, Bad Calories

Why we get Fat and what to do about it