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The Case Against Sugar, by Gary Taubes,Alfred Knopf, 2016
"If you ever doubted that sugar is the root cause of our obesity, diabetes, and heart disease epidemic, then look no further than this book. Doctors, policy makers, and concerned eaters would do well to heed Taubes's advice." Mark Hyman, M.D., author of The Blood Sugar Solution
Taubes, author of the best-seller Why We Get Fat, leads this work with the talked-about challenge of "Why Diabetes?" and the reasons flow from an abundance of statistics, to just what we see around us - sugary drinks, sugared deserts, a plethora of diabetes drugs, and diabetes hitting American citizens at all ages with the ugly diabetes fallout of neuropathy, blindness, infections, and extreme overweight. The story doesn't stop there, as Taubes tallies up the cost of other health problems caused by the long history of refined sugar, think modern dentisty and and rotted out teeth. His litany of sugar woes is hard to take, but for people who care, who don't want to eliminate a good opportunity for well-being, this is an important nutrition plus policy plus history book.
"Drug or Food?" Taubes asks, and we have to wonder if this addictive ingredient is first of all a drug to which addiction can be easily ascribed. While Thomas Jefferson is credited with preferring maple syrup because it required no intensive refining and therefore human (slave) labor, it's clear that refined sugar won the volume and scale sweepstakes, becoming in a short time a global economic giant equal to tobacco.
But, says Taubes, diabetes is more prevalent today than before; he claims that obesity is at epidemic proportions, and nearly 10% of children are thought to have nonalcoholic fatty liver disease! We've used sugar as a preservative, as an additive in cigarettes, as high-fructose corn syrup, and as the sugary addictive in high caffeine drinks. But the science of sugar's long-term effects are covered equally in The Case Against Sugar; readers will be surprised by the misconceptions about the relationship between sugar and weight loss, as well as our general lack of cause and effect knowledge about sugar and exercise.
Is sugar an addiction, "the new tobacco"? The case for this disruptive and controversial study is deeply researched, leaving readers with a compelling choice - continue to consume the FDA allowed pounds of sugar per year, or think about the proven damage sugar causes - cavities, metabolic highs and lows. in "women of a certain age" insulin resistance, and all the terrible side effects of the diabetes epidemic. If we can live without it, why not?
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Why We Get Fat and What To Do About It, by Gary Taubes,Anchor Books 2011
There aren't too many answers to the question "Why do we get fat?" according to best-selling author (Good Calories, Bad, Calories; Why We Get Fat and The Case Against Sugar) Gary Taubes - in fact, he says, the simple answer is:
"Once you accept the fact that carbohydrates - not overeating or a sedentary life - will make you fat, then the idea of 'going on a diet' to lose weight, or what the health experts would call a 'dietary treatment for obesity,' no longer holds any real meaning. Now the only subjects worth discussing are how to best avoid the carbohydrates responsible - the refined grains, the starches, and the sugars - and what else we might do to maximize the benefits to our health."
Hah, it's that easy. Carbohydrates, especially sugar.
But one more reason why Taubes emphasizes diet change - one out of eight US women get breast cancer and diet is a direct contributor. Taubes cites studies that show how Japanese women for whom cancer would be relatively rare at home in Japan, when they migrate from Japan take only two generations for their descendants to experience the same breast-cancer rates as any other local ethnic group. (US 1 out of 8 women get bc). And he says it's the American diet. Same for Inuits, the Pima and other populations whose cancer rates rise when they become Westernized. Even my breast cancer surgeon warns during her public lectures about carrying around belly fat because fat in women of a certain age generates estrogen, which fuels cancer cells.
But of course the additional reasons for improved diet are abundant in Why We Get Fat. Readers will find the Afterword with "Answers to Frequently Asked Questions" most helpful. For example, readers wonder if counting calories is important in weight regulation. Taubes answers that calories are merely a measure of the energy content of the food we eat, and they can be valuable for calculating input. But "We're concerned, in particular, with the effect of the carbohydrates we consume on insulin secretion." Insulin! Diabetes! Injections, infections, blindness and more pills! Baddddd!
It may be hard to build a good new diet, especially for readers who have seen or heard about all the successors - Atkins, Grapefruit, Water, Zone Diet, Dukan, etc etc. Here the author offers great help, and in the Appendix you will find his "No Sugar, No Starch" Diet, with sections on getting started, food lists, and low-carb menu planning. It's simple and looks a lot like the Dukan Diet.
Mill Girl Verdict: A great starting point - alarming statistics, positive reinforcement if you are looking to make a BIG change.
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