Correlation is when two things happen together (the rooster crows, the sun come up). Taubes painstakingly and carefully explains some basics of research that will make any reader a more knowledgeable and astute consumer of information– namely the difference between correlation and cause. The resulting tale is part sociology, part politics, part medicine, part detective story, all of it absolutely fascinating.
Keys surveyed 21 countries looking for correlations between diet and heart disease, selected seven that supported his thesis that cholesterol and heart disease were cause and effect, and then tirelessly campaigned for his position to reduce cholesterol by reducing fat. In almost 500 pages of closely reasoned, impeccably researched material, Taubes details how the “low-fat” philosophy gained traction in the 60’s, largely on the strength of seriously flawed research by Ancel Keys.
Some critics have already called “Good Calories Bad Calories” the most important nutrition book of the past 50 years. Now, four years later, the book has arrived. The concepts presented in that article were so revolutionary that they earned Taubes a much-publicized book deal. The author, three time winner of the Science In Society Journalism award Gary Taubes, suggested that low-fat diets weren’t all they were cracked up to be, and that pioneers- such as Robert Atkins- were onto something when they questioned the wisdom of low-fat.
Secondarily to that notion was the idea that following a low-fat diet would prevent all manner of illnesses and conditions, from heart disease to obesity. The epynonomous “big fat lie” was the belief that “fat” in any form was evil and the root of all disease. Four years ago, a blockbuster article on the cover of the New York Times Magazine asked the question, “What if it’s all been a big fat lie?”.
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