What drives fat accumulation is not a caloric imbalance, but a hormonal one - namely, elevated insulin levels caused by eating carbohydrates. Instead of being the staples of a heart-healthy diet, carbohydrates are actually the culprits of our nation's obesity epidemic, according to Taubes. Food Guide Pyramid has failed to reduce rates of obesity, diabetes and heart disease. He says scientific evidence and history prove that the U.S.
"It's still fundamentally flawed because it's still a high-carbohydrate diet," says Taubes. The practice of counting calories is also embraced by the federal government, which just released revised dietary guidelines recommending that Americans eat less food overall, but consume more whole grains, vegetables and fruits. ""Not only is this thinking at least partly responsible for the ever-growing numbers of obese and overweight people in the world - while directing attention away from the real reasons we get fat - but it has served to reinforce the perception that those who are fat have no one to blame but themselves." Federal guidelines "It has done incalculable harm," Taubes writes.
Taubes targets the calories-in, calories-out paradigm - people get fat because they take in more calories than they expend - that has been the long-held belief of the American medical establishment and diet industry. Taubes' book is the latest blast in a decades-long battle over whether calories or carbohydrates are to blame for Americans' bulging waistlines. Diets that require a steep drop in caloric consumption only allow us to drop pounds temporarily but are not a cure for obesity, he says. Being fat increases our risk of heart disease and diabetes, he says, as well as cancer and Alzheimer's disease. "It's the most important issue in medicine today," argues Taubes, a fellow at UC Berkeley's School of Public Health. That diet brings on a vicious cycle of craving more of the same carbohydrates that sap our energy and pack on the pounds.
Instead, we become couch potatoes because we are getting fat by eating too much pasta and rice, and too many cookies. We're not fat because we're gluttons with no willpower who sit around watching too much TV, he says. He contends that carbohydrates - sweets, breads and fruit - and not fatty foods are to blame for our nation's rising obesity rate. Taubes challenges the conventional wisdom that says if we just eat less and exercise more we will lose weight.
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