Sunday, February 17, 2008

Another Taubes Lecture

In case you haven't already seen this, Regina Wilshire and Jimmy Moore have both pointed to this new lecture by Gary Taubes. Excellent.





I'm sure this will irritate those readers that dislike Taubes. Still, if you have a spare hour it is well worth watching.

7 comments:

Charles R. said...

It was interesting to me that he said that he is now being ostracized and seen as a "quack," and can't make a living any more.

He has a dark sense of humor, so that last comment may have been a joke, but I'm guessing that there has been an attempt to marginalize him, just as they tried to marginalize Atkins and anyone else that attacks the accepted nutritional dogma.

It's just amazing to me--and frustrating after watching this kind of stuff happen for the last 40 years that I've been involved in "alternative" nutrition--that the established authorities can still get away with this kind of thing, when the evidence is all around us that they know absolutely nothing about how to get or keep people healthy.

"Who are you going to believe,"they say, "us or your lying eyes?"

But then if you think about it, the amount of money made by convincing people that low-fat, high-carb is good for you is staggering.

Billions and billions of dollars are made from selling manufactured carbohydrate foods. All of those billions are threatened by Taubes and the other that understand as he does.

I doubt they will ever give up, and General Mills, Cargill, and the other huge multi-national fake food producers aren't going away.

So I guess we can only save ourselves, huh :)

Anonymous said...

Merely a repeat of the other lecture you posted. No new content, no research to support his claims. Repeating something a hundred times doesn't necessarily make it true...like WMDs in Iraq ;-) He brings ups some good points but it's a shame that he offers nothing to back up his theory that carbs are the root of all evil.

Charles R. said...

Bill,

Have you read the book? There are multiple dozens of references to support his hypothesis and refute the competing, more faddish, "obesity comes from sloth and gluttony and eating fatty foods" hypothesis.

It's a 400+ page book, and all of his talks are necessarily a condensed version. And in an hour, he doesn't even have time to get through the main points, and the basic supporting research, as this demonstrates.

I'm assuming you've read the book, and it's the argument it contains that you are refuting, right? I can't imagine you would feel competent criticizing his argument while not knowing what it was in detail.

Chris said...

Sorry Bill I think you are wrong.

Granted, most of the material is the same as the previous lecture but that is not a problem. There is ample evidence in the lecture (and definitely in the book) to back up his position.

But, it is like i said in a post the other day - there are different world views at play here. You seem to have made up your mind and I doubt that you would ever be convinced by any argument that Taubes could give that (to put it simply) carbs drive insulin and insulin drives fat.

Charles R. said...

In so many ways, it's become a religious argument for those disputing Taubes.

And in this context, Chris brought up the "carbs drive insulin and insulin drives fat," construction because as was pointed out in Taubes's book, he talked to the scientist/researcher who edited an 800-page reference that made that argument repeatedly. And he agreed that that was true. But when Taubes said to him, "Doesn't that mean logically then that carbs drive fat?" he answered to the effect that, "We know what makes people fat, overeating and sedentary behavior."

That pretty well sums it up. Dogma, not science.

Anonymous said...

Nowhere in his lectures or in his book does he invalidate all of the metabolic ward studies that show no low-carb advantage. Why are these truly controlled studies so conveniently ignored? That recent study in JAMA is a great example of why self-reporting doesn't work and cannot be used to prove anything related to diet.

I absolutely have not made up my mind against Taubes or any of the low-carb theorists. But they really haven't proved their hypothesis. OTOH, I have been convinced that low-fat is definitely wrong.

What I want to see is good reasons that moderate carb intake of minimally processed food (whole grains, fruits, vegies, etc) should be abandoned for the low-carb paleo that Chris is pushing. So far, it seems that both extremes of low-fat and low-carb are both unfounded. It appears the truth is in the middle but nobody is reporting on mod-carb, mod-fat, mod-protein healthful diets... probably not enough money in that message ;-)

Chris said...

Here we go again....low carb advantage? Who brought that up?

I am not "pushing" anything - just posting things I find interesting. I admit I am personally persuaded by the low carb paleo position but I am not "pushing it" . If you don't like it, fine by me.

I am glad you are open minded about Taubes and that you currently believe low fat is wrong.

You talk about a mod-carb / mod-fat / mod-protein diet as "healthful". Calling it "Healthful" seems to indicate that you have made up your mind on what constitutes a healthful diet, so we can forget the science.