***Note: I checked with Knopf about copyright and they informed me that I can keep the notes up for a limited time until they withdraw the permission. Please download your own copy of the PDF while it’s still available.***
Gary Taubes’s masterpiece—Good Calories, Bad Calories
—is the most important book ever written on diet and health. Drawing from an astounding body of research, Taubes challenges the conventional wisdom head on and decisively wins (the book is perhaps overkill.) He shows that carbohydrates are the root cause of obesity and most chronic diseases, and that fat is not only innocent, but positively beneficial. The book was so amazingly good that after finishing it, I decided to read it through again and take extensive notes for future reference. Now that I’ve finished, I figure that these notes could be quite useful as a reference to others who’ve read the book, or even as an overview to get more people to read the book. These notes are no substitute for reading the book though. They were written as a reference to complement the book and I strongly recommend reading it through in its entirety. Armed with Taubes’s book and these notes, you’ll be a low-carb, high-fat force to be reckoned with!
If you’re unacquainted with Taubes’s work, his obesity lecture is a good place to start.
About Toban Wiebe
I’m an undergrad student ultimately aiming for an economics PhD. In a nutshell, I’m an atheist, market anarchist, and paleo health enthusiast. In other words, I reject God, Government, and Grain.
thank you so much for this brief. I have read the book in its entirety. currently listening to the audiobook version. have also read and listened to his current book (Why you are Fat…). Mr. Taubes really should be given some national award for his years of research into food consumption and r hhealth. Thank you again for your hard work.
Thank you for this summary; I did buy the book as a result.
I know it is brash, but I would like to request that you do the same type of summary for WHY WE GET FAT….
IF you ever have time. The points are often similar but the presentation is briefer and more easily absorbed.
I am a Certified Diabetes Educator (in Mexico) and along with Dr. Richard K. Bernstein’s take on the low-carb lifestyle for persons with diabetes, Taubes’ book and your notes have really eased my explanations and questions to patients. I tell them to use their own experience (with measures of blood sugar levels) to decide for themselves if it works or not to produce more “normal” metabolism. Those who try, are rewarded in 99% of the cases with blood sugar levels and lack of food cravings like they have not seen before.
Best wishes to you!
Dr. Stan De Loach
México, Distrito Federal