Chris MacAskill Debunks Gary Taubes and The Case for Keto
Gary Taubes is a polarizing author with a new diet book, “The Case for Keto”. He raised $40 million to fund nutrition studies from respected scientists and claims that we’ve been lied to by the authorities. He exploded onto the scene in 2002 with a cover story in the New York Times magazine entitled “What If It’s All Been A Big Fat Lie” and got a huge advance from a publisher to turn it into a book. He believes that almost all successful diets, Mediterranean, keto, whole plant food diets, eliminate the 60% of calories Americans now get from processed foods. In 2019, scientist Kevin Hall from the National Institutes of Health conducted an experiment comparing how people do on processed foods versus real food.
The experiment showed that people get more calories and gain weight when they eat processed food. Gary quotes from respected nutrition professor Reginald Passmore, who in 1963 wrote in the British Medical Journal, “Every woman knows that carbohydrate is fattening.” He then went to work chasing more references to make sure they were solid. Fiber is also a carb, and Gary’s version of keto allows unlimited green vegetables, berries, avocados, and olives. Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin is the father of low carb diets, and his book “Calories don’t Count” was published in 1826. Dr. Herman Taller’s book “Calories don’t Count” was published in 1961, and he believed unsaturated fats were the key to weight loss. He recommended drinking three ounces a day of safflower oil, but was convicted of fraud for selling safflower oil pills.
The most important details in this text are that Gary’s sources are old and obscure, and that he misrepresents them. He found a 1951 textbook that listed eight foods to avoid, one of which was excess fat. He also eliminated the line about limiting salt and glossed over the line that said we could eat unlimited fruit except for bananas and grapes. The text goes on to say that certain carbs are fine like beets but not turnips, and that refined carbs don’t apply to whole grains and vegetables. These details show that Gary’s quotes from old sources can be plagiarized by health influencers instead of reading the original source.
The most important details in this text are the findings of a study conducted by Ancel Keys in the 1950s. The study found that areas like Greece that ate a lot of fat from olive oil didn’t have many heart attacks, while areas like Finland that ate a lot of fat from meat and cheese did. Gary Taubes’ vanish sentence went viral on the internet, and he raised $40 million to fund research to see if a carb calorie made you fat while the fat calorie didn’t. However, the studies didn’t show that a carb calorie made you fat. Ketoism helps people feel less hungry and avoid fat shaming.
The most important details in this text are that Dr. Greger has been fat shaming his readers, and that it takes hard work and time to get to a healthier place. Dr. Bean has lost 43 pounds by eating mostly whole plants, and Dr. Taubes quotes a Dr. Astwood as saying that genes determine stature, hair color, and the size of one’s feet. He also mentions that selective breeding provided us with the pig, and that his corpulence and gluttony was caused by man’s artificial selection. The book “Fat Head” claims that scientists are to blame for the obesity crisis, as they concluded that human health depends on foods we didn’t eat for more than 99% of our existence. It suggests that the nutritional and academic authorities have failed us, leading to epidemic obesity.
Gary’s 2002 article was accused of taking a contrarian perspective, but his side of the story is that there is no evidence to support the idea that a healthy diet must be mostly plants. He compares two books that help people lose weight by eating mostly whole plants. Gary’s side of the story is that there is no evidence to support the idea that a healthy diet must include fruits, vegetables, whole grains, pulses, and legumes, and that there is no meaningful clinical trial evidence to support this idea.
The most important details in this text are that Gary Taubes is not a doctor and that he is not a quack, but that he used the words “big fat lie” in his 2000 paper to misrepresent his 2000 paper. He also criticized Gary for not addressing the environmental impact of animal agriculture in his 2000 paper, and for not addressing the link between food animals and infectious diseases in his 2000 paper. He also criticized Gary for not addressing the environmental impact of animal agriculture in his 2000 paper, and for not addressing the link between food animals and infectious diseases in his 2000 paper.
(I used Quillbot for the article this time. Not particularly happy with it, but I’ll continue playing.)