Buy this book as fast as you can: Why We Get Fat by Gary Taubes

Gary Taubes' new book, Why We Get Fat, is nothing short of tremendous.  I'm trying not to be overly effusive in my praise, and thus discredit myself to skeptical readers, but it's hard not to be: this is a seminal book.  (It is not a "paleo" book, for those of you who may not identify with that term.)

Why We Get Fat is the popular treatment of Taubes' earlier hit, Good Calories, Bad Calories.  GCBC was a long and heavily-researched treatment on the evolution of our beliefs on what causes obesity.  It was dense.  Think of GCBC like the fibrous plants people used to eat --  probably more nutritious to chew your way through, but it took forever and was really hard to digest.  Why We Get Fat has all the deliciousness of Good Calories, Bad Calories, minus the 10,000 grams of fiber.

Taubes takes dead aim at the calories-in / calories-out hypothesis.  This is the hypothesis that obesity is *caused* by over-eating or under-exercising (a caloric surplus).  It seems true on the face of it -- the only way you can become heavier and fatter is to take in more calories than you expend.  This hypothesis has dominated the last fifty years of mainstream health advice from doctors, government officials, and many health gurus.  It underpins our nation's low fat hysteria (fat has more calories per gram than carbohydrate, therefore fat is evil!), our exercise madness (go burn those calories!), and contributes to the notion that fat causes heart disease (if obesity increases the risk of heart disease, and if fat leads to obesity, then Honey Nut Cheerios must be heart healthy!).  But what if the calories-in / calories-out hypothesis is wrong?  What if we've spent two generations and billions of dollars re-engineering our food system and altering our eating habits away from fat...and making ourselves fatter and unhealthier as a result?  That's what Taubes convincingly argues with clear logic, specific evidence, and brilliant illustrations on every page.

For example, Taubes points out, it would be absurd to say that alcoholism is the result of chronic over-drinking.  Well, yeah...that's just re-stating the problem.  The question remains: why do some people chronically over-drink?  And why do some people find themselves chronically in caloric surplus?  Is it really just an eating disorder, or a lack of restraint, discipline, character, or willpower?  No, argues Taubes -- hormones determine fat storage and usage, and a hormonal imbalance is causing obesity.  (Willpower has a role, but willpower fails if our body thinks it is starving.)

Consider a growing child.  As a child grows, she eats more calories than she expends -- at the end, she is taller, her bones are thicker, etc.  She grew.  What caused that growth?  Did that child grow *because* she consumed more calories than she expended (i.e., over-ate)?  Or is it the other way around?  Did that growing child release hormones that were signaling the body to increase appetite?  Height is a form of growth that is driven by hormones.  So is obesity.  The real question is what causes the hormonal imbalance the results in a caloric surplus.

The answer, as Taubes argues, is carbohydrate.  Carbohydrate drives insulin drives fat storage.   This is not a new idea, and it is not a fad diet.  It was the conventional wisdom for hundreds of years before low fat hysteria took hold a few decades ago.  In fact, Taubes frequently tells the reader that there is nothing new in this book -- not only is it simply a more succinct version of GCBC, but the arguments in the book are not original to Taubes.  They were the accepted wisdom based on scientific evidence, much of it conducted by the Germans and Austrians in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, before World War II derailed and buried their work.

Reading this book may leave many of you shaking your head, particularly at statements like this: 

"In other words, and hard as this may be to believe, if you replace the carbohydrates in your diet with an equal quantity of lard, it will actually reduce your risk of having a heart attack.  It will make you healthier."

Taubes is so persuasive that you may be shaking your head at how we ever thought otherwise.

You can buy the book here.  Gary's blog is here.

Comments

I don’t understand why

Submitted by Anonymous on Tue, 02/01/2011 - 16:11.

I don’t understand why some Paleo people trumpet this book so much. It claims that carbs/insulin is the root of all of evil, which has nothing much to do with Paleo, especially the more progressive/WAPF end of the spectrum. The “3 Horsemen” (fructose, omega-6, and wheat) have nothing to do Taubes “One Horsemen” of insulin spikes. Neolithic foods like margarine and corn oil have nothing to do with insulin spikes. A lot of people value Taubes contribution to deconstructing the lipid hypothesis (even if he didn’t really look at omega-6s), but Why We Get Fat is mainly about his Carb/Insulin theory and paradigm. Most of the more scientifically-oriented bloggers in the paleosphere like Guyenet, Dr. Harris, Masterjohn, Minger, Berkhan, Jaminet, Colpo, Kock, etc… say Taubes is just plain wrong about the Carb/Insulin theory and Why We Get Fat. Why promote a book that is plain wrong and has nothing to do with Paleo? Just because Taubes is the T. Colin Campbell of the low carb movement doesn’t mean he has to be the T. Colin Campbell of the Paleo movement too.

The China Study is straight

Submitted by Geoff on Tue, 02/01/2011 - 16:30.

The China Study is straight propaganda. If you actually read the book, which you clearly haven't, he presents it as a carbohydrate hypothesis, and suggests that it may require fructose and/or wheat flour to cause the initial problems with carbohydrates. 

He thinks that sugar and

Submitted by Anonymous on Tue, 02/01/2011 - 17:34.

He thinks that sugar and refined flour are triggers in that they are particularly insulinogenic. Again, most of the scientific bloggers don’t buy this insulin theory.

Fructose is not insulinogenic, omega-6 is not insulinogenic, and processed wheat starch is not anymore insulinogenic than processed rice starch. Again, how does his Insulin Theory jive with Paleo?

He also said in the interview that his Insulin Theory requires that the carbs in green leafy vegetables can be problematic for some people. Does ANYBODY buy this?

In his Jimmy Moore interview, Taubes scoffs at the idea there is something more to wheat other than starch or that omega-6s play much of a role in the diseases of civilization. In this interview Taubes seems pretty insistant that his theory is the only right one.

That's all fine and dandy if you are a low carb fanatic that doesn't care about Paleo or science, but otherwise...

He says that sugar may be the

Submitted by Geoff on Tue, 02/01/2011 - 18:08.

He says that sugar may be the trigger in that the fructose is metabolized in the liver at precisely the same time as the glucose spikes insulin. You clearly haven't read the book, or if you did, you didn't read it very carefully. I have my own criticisms of the book, but I will say that he has left the door open to him being wrong about some elements of his theory, and in fact said that he is probably wrong about some elements of it. I don't know what interviews you're listening to, Taubes is nothing if not open minded. He is sticking strictly to the science, most of which is focused on macronutrient ratios, and very little of which is focused on plant toxins, PUFA and fructose specifically.I was pretty disappointed by this book on the whole, but Good Calories, Bad Calories still stands on its own, particularly if you ignore the epilogue in which he voices his opinion on the subject manner. The Paleo movement would still be if Good Calories, Bad Calories hadn't been written, and I don't think there is really anyone else in the world who was in a position to so thoroughly destroy the lipid hypothesis. It may have been another generation or two of failed policy before any of this stuff started to go mainstream had that book not been written.

Hey Geoff, Even if you were

Submitted by Anonymous on Tue, 02/01/2011 - 18:49.

Hey Geoff,

Even if you were 100% correct, nothing you are saying there though really supports why certain Paleo bloggers should be so enthusiastically endorsing Why We Get Fat. Just sayin’…

BTW, I think GCBC would have been much more powerful if he had left off all the Insulin hypothesis stuff. Most mainstream people that critique GCBC jump all over the carb/insulin thing and barely mention the lipid hypothesis. Listening to the Jimmy Moore interview though, you get the impression that the Carb/Insulin Hypothesis is what Taubes himself is most interested in talking about and promoting. (But like I said, most people on the scientific side of things, even big Taubes fans, don’t buy it. So again, why endorse Why We Get Fat? where he mainly talks about the part of his work that nobody buys. Maybe, just maybe, there is some guru stuff going on...)

The calories-in /

Submitted by John on Tue, 02/01/2011 - 21:03.

The calories-in / calories-out hypothesis is so destructive that this book is tremendously valuable just for that. I don't have as deep a background in nutrition and metabolism as Taubes, Harris, Gueyenet, Masterjohn...so I'd be pleased if more people who disagreed chimed in.

 So how does this then

Submitted by C.C on Mon, 01/31/2011 - 18:57.

 So how does this then explain the petite people in Asia, and all the healthy vegans/vegetarians with small frames that mainly live on carbs? To say that adding lard to your diet will actually reduce the risk of a hart attack is not only controversial, but also a very misguiding and incorrect. I'm not sure switching my fruit salad for some pig fat will benefit my body in any way.Basing a blog on the scepticism of a meat-free diet fuels the notion that carnism is the norm which society should follow and that we should see the unethical killings and eating of animals as a standard for our source of food. It is not surprising that you hold some kind of grudge against  creatures who refuse to eat other creatures; after all, carnism (eating the flesh and other parts of the bodies of others) is an inherently violent belief system in us humans and includes social and psychological defence mechanisms to block your empathy whilst you eat meat. So it's no surprise that you take part in this inhumane practice - ideology of speciesism has led you to do so. You have this notion of some species being worthy of less consideration then others and that's fine - you were brought up with this notion and it is a deeply entrenched belief system which is hard to come out of. Heck - it took me over twenty years!At the end of the day, your blog advocates a lack of empathy and a step backwards for the human being as well as the state of our planet. Eating meat today is not the same as eating meat 2000 years ago. Today, meat consumption is the number one most damaging act against the climate and our eco-system.Hopefully one day, you'll be able to look past your "diets" and eat with the welfare of our planet and other living creatures in mind, instead of your idea of being a noble carnivore.Love, C.Cfablefoods.blogspot.com

 Gary answers about people in

Submitted by Danny on Wed, 02/09/2011 - 01:56.

 Gary answers about people in Asia here:http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/cardiovascular-disease/gary-taubes-responds/It largely comes down to fructose.Also, what are you talking about adding lard (fat) to your diet as being bad for heart attacks? There is no correlation. Study after study tries to prove this but they never do. Fat (and saturated fat) has no correlation with all the bad things you hear about. It's really easy to find this via Google and Google Scholar, so I'll let you discover this. The easiest example is the Eskimos who ate something like 90% animal products and only started having heart/obesity/etc. problems when we came in and changed their diets.Lastly, it all comes down to the biology of our fat. To grow fat needs insulin. The greatest source of insulin release (by far) is dietary carbohytrates. When there is an absence of carbohydrates the fat signals to your body to eat less and shrinks. This is just how it works. It's the science behind our bodies. There is no opinion, no "we are all different". We all have fat cells that work this way.

I second the comment above

Submitted by Rob A. on Mon, 01/31/2011 - 08:11.

I second the comment above that leptin seems to have a substantial role to play in insulin resistance.  And anyway, it's insulin 'resistance' that's problematic, not insulin.  Avoiding that which spikes insulin may help alleviate the symptoms, but side-steps the issue of proper glucose metabolism.  As Stephen Guyenet pointed out, the human animal is very well capable of handling glucose, but somehow in Western society, our mechanisms for dealing with it have been damaged.  That says nothing about the inherently problematic nature of insulin. And as Chris Masterjohn said at the same conference, blaming insulin resistance on insulin is like blaming childhood mortality on children.  Strictly true, but shallow and it misses the point. That said I agree that dietary fat isn't evil, obesity isn't a willpower issues, hormones are key, and refined carbohydrates are very apparently awful for us.

Thanks, Rob. Taubes gets us

Submitted by John on Tue, 02/01/2011 - 00:37.

Thanks, Rob. Taubes gets us closer to the truth. I'm not sure why he neglected leptin. I was at the WAPF conference where Stephan and Chris gave their excellent talks!

I've already put in a request

Submitted by George on Sat, 01/29/2011 - 18:37.

I've already put in a request at the library for the Audiobook CD copy, I'm apparently 4th in line and it hasn't even arrived at the library yet.  This bodes well, it may mean that there are other people out there who may want to get involved in meetshares et al.I just got a notice from the library that a paperback copy of GCBC is waiting for me.

 This one is definitely going

Submitted by Kristjan Mar on Sat, 01/29/2011 - 13:02.

 This one is definitely going on my reading list, will check it out when I find the time :)

 I was disappointed by the

Submitted by Geoff on Fri, 01/28/2011 - 11:36.

 I was disappointed by the lack of mention of leptin and leptin resistance. A kindle search of the book for the word "leptin" yielded 0 results. I don't think that anyone has the biochemistry of how food toxins, particularly fructose, grain lectins and linoleic acid cause leptin resistance, but it seems pretty clear at this point that this is in fact the cause of obesity, and insulin resistance is a byproduct of leptin resistance, not the other way around. Good primers on the subject here and here.

Thanks for the review.  I

Submitted by Allan Jackson on Fri, 01/28/2011 - 11:20.

Thanks for the review.  I just bought a copy to read and then loan to my fat-phobic in-laws.  I've been looking for a book that wasn't overly scientific (or underly scientific, of course), overly "diet book"ish, or overly "paleo".  Hoepfully this book fits that bill.

Yeah, this book definitely

Submitted by John on Fri, 01/28/2011 - 14:36.

Yeah, this book definitely fits the bill

 I wonder if this is better

Submitted by Mountain on Sat, 01/29/2011 - 15:34.

 I wonder if this is better for fat-phobes, or Fathead on Hulu?

 I wonder if this is better

Submitted by Mountain on Sat, 01/29/2011 - 15:34.

 I wonder if this is better for fat-phobes, or Fathead on Hulu?

For people who hate the

Submitted by John on Sat, 01/29/2011 - 16:04.

For people who hate the nanny-state: Fat Head. For people who revere science: Why We Get fat.

 Thanks John, great post.

Submitted by Wild10014 on Fri, 01/28/2011 - 10:40.

 Thanks John, great post.  Guess what I'm reading this weekend  ...As the mother of a hypothyroid teenager, we are knee deep in dietary experimentation as clearly, "the drugs don't work."    I am now entirely convinced that carbohydrates play a major role in her endocrine imbalance .... looking forward to examining the science as we begin to walk towards healing.  

 Thanks John, great post.

Submitted by Wild10014 on Fri, 01/28/2011 - 10:40.

 Thanks John, great post.  Guess what I'm reading this weekend  ...As the mother of a hypothyroid teenager, we are knee deep in dietary experimentation as clearly, "the drugs don't work."    I am now entirely convinced that carbohydrates play a major role in her endocrine imbalance .... looking forward to examining the science as we begin to walk towards healing.  

 Thanks for sharing this,

Submitted by Lauren on Fri, 01/28/2011 - 10:32.

 Thanks for sharing this, John! My mother called me the other day because she had a friend who was shocked at how much fat she was eating and she wondered if maybe she wasn't eating as healthy as she thought. I was trying to explain exactly all that you shared above. I am going to have to read this book and share it with her. 

Great book on health, and all

Submitted by Tadas on Fri, 01/28/2011 - 03:40.

Great book on health, and all the diseases wich go along with excess insulin. But he forgot to talk about the Acylation stimulating Protein (ASP), as usually.You can store fat without a single carbohydrate...For health: Big YesFor Weightloss: To many mistakes

ASP has no business in any

Submitted by Geoff on Fri, 01/28/2011 - 11:28.

ASP has no business in any conversation about obesity, although he does mention it in a footnote stating that it is "almost assuredly an insignificant exception. It is secreted by the fat tissue itself, a process that is regulated at least in part by insulin." Even if you overeat fat, you really cannot get fat despite this metabolic pathway for fat storage. In addition, it is all but impossible to overeat fat to begin with. 

Gee, Boss, I don't find that

Submitted by LeonRover on Sat, 01/29/2011 - 12:18.

Gee, Boss, I don't find that :I just a little sucralose to my cream or Greek Yoghurt and and can chug indefinitelyor add one little potato and pepper to a mound of butter and gobble it up - Glorious !

I agree with Tadas. In

Submitted by David Brown on Fri, 01/28/2011 - 10:46.

I agree with Tadas. In addition I would say that Taubes ignored the omega-6 hazard, another component in the food supply that affects health in general and weight in particular.http://www.scribd.com/doc/17349563/The-Issue-of-Dietary-Omega6-Fatty-Aci...http://nutrition-info-411.evelyntribole.com/2010/12/03/meta-analysis-rev...http://www.examiner.com/nutrition-in-sacramento/are-excessive-amounts-of...http://www.vitalchoice.com/shop/pc/articlesView.asp?id=1168http://healthybodydaily.com/dr-oz-in-case-you-missed-it/dr-oz-omega-3-fa...

Got a link on places where

Submitted by John on Fri, 01/28/2011 - 10:18.

Got a link on places where you think it's incomplete?