- Hey, it's Chris and Gary Taubes just came out
with a new diet book "The Case for Keto."
So naturally some of my friends emailed
me and asked what I thought of it.
He is one polarizing author.
Gary said he tells his vegetarian wife,
"maybe I'm a quack."
All quacks are sure they're right.
I took him seriously though
because he has a bachelor's in physics from Harvard,
a master's in aerospace engineering from Stanford,
and a master's in journalism from Columbia,
impressive.He raised $40 million to fund
nutrition studies from respected scientists.
And there is a case for keto.
You ditch processed food for one thing.
And some people achieve dramatic weight loss.
And Gary looks good for a man in his early sixties.
- And the way you get insulin down,
as you get them off carbohydrates
and you hope like hell that butter
and bacon are health foods.
- In this episode, I'll take you through his boldest claims
that we've been lied to by the authorities
that nutrition scientists are the worst of any field-
- Listen, my second book was called "Bad Science",
and my physicist friends said,
"if you're fascinated with Bad Science,
you should look at this stuff
in public health, it's terrible".
- That if we cut the carbs will naturally slim down
and get healthy as if by magic.
And how it's really unfair to be fat-shamed
and accused of gluttony and sloth
by nutrition experts who are naturally slender.
And so they can't understand
how some bodies are just different.
I'll end the episode with my answer to his biggest question,
is he on to a major breakthrough for people
who fatten easily, or is he a quack?
Gary exploded under the scene in 2002
with the cover story in the New York Times magazine
entitled, "What if it's all been a big fat lie?"
You have to admit,
if you're looking for attention, that's a great title.
Anger is the most viral emotion and being lied to
by authorities makes people scream
Definitely worked on me
because my heroes are great scientists,
and to accuse thousands of them of lying
over the last few centuries pushes all my buttons.
But seriously, if they really did lie
or they just got it all wrong,
I'm ready to face it.
Gary said that story got so much attention,
he got a huge advance from a publisher
to turn it into a book.
The press reported the advance as $700,000.
I said in a past episode that almost all successful diets
Mediterranean keto, whole plant food diets eliminate
the 60% of calories Americans now get from processed foods.
Anybody who takes those out of their diet
gets a high five from me.
In 2019 scientist, Kevin Hall
from the National Institutes of Health,
did a fascinating experiment comparing
how people do on processed foods versus real food,
and shocker we get more calories and gain weight
when we get to eat processed food.
I still miss you sugar frosted flakes and Tony the tiger.
- We'll put a tiger on your team,
Kellogg's Sugar Frosted Flakes.
- Speaking of processed food, early in the book,
Gary quoted from respected nutrition,
Professor Reginald Passmore who in 1963 wrote
in the British medical journal,
"every woman knows that carbohydrate is fattening:
this is a piece of common knowledge,
which few nutritionists would dispute".
That really snapped my head back
because what respected scientists would make a statement
like that, especially in a respected medical journal.
I had to go chase that reference.
Gary's right, it's the opening line.
But the paper quickly explains what they mean
by carbohydrate, white bread jam and sugar.
Well, yeah, if that's your definition of carbs
then every woman does know, they make you fat.
Doesn't that bring up the question of what a book
about carbs means when it uses the term carbs.
Since Gary refers to carbs in various ways, I asked a kid
to explain them in ways we could all understand.
But first we had to go buy some.
- Cosmic brownies. whole grain.
Ill explain carbs so simply that even a kid can understand.
These are evil carbs, full of sugar and white flour.
The box is "Oops all Berries" looks in there
didn't seem to be a no, it come to the sneaky carbs.
These foods have health grams on the packages.
There's more of a tablespoon sugar mixed into this baby.
These are the type of carbs everyone fights about
what makes these carbs different from evil carbs is
that the food company didn't remove the fiber.
This final group is like the previous group
except lowering calories.
- What kids wouldn't know.
And Gary doesn't explain is that fiber is also a carb.
All plants have it, no animal foods have it.
So it's a good thing Gary's version of keto
allows unlimited green vegetables
berries, avocados, and olives.
Fiber is the hot new thing now
because we're discovering its profound role
in gut health and the microbiome.
It's what gut bugs munch that reference to all women
knowing that carbs make you fat shook me a little
because Gary made it sound like
Dr. Passmore was talking about carbs in general
not just white bread, sugar and jam.
So I went to work chasing more references to
make sure they were solid.
And that meant buying a lot of old books
going all the way back to 1826.
This one is published by a Frenchman.
Gary says is the father of low carb diets.
I don't speak French.He's got a complicated name Jean Anthel
- Jean Anthelme Brillat Savarin
Brillat Savarin
- Jean Anthelme Brillat Savarin
Whatever, Thanks to my son-in-law
for the French lesson.Often women wish to be fat.
This is a wish we've heard expressed a thousand times
thinness is a terrible misfortune to women
do whom beauty is more important than life.
And the beauty of whom consists
in the roundness and graceful contour of their forms.
Fattening regimen, general rule
much fresh bread will be eaten during the day.
And particular care will be taken not to throw away
the crumbs as much sugar
as possible should be put on fruits.
Another early reference in the case for keto
is Dr.Herman Taller's book, calories don't count
which sold 2 million copies in 1961
notable because it proceeded the Atkins diet.
I am fascinated by the topic
of why we believe what we do so I could not put this book
down. Dr. Taller believed the key to weight loss
was unsaturated fats because they softened the fat tissue
any recommended drinking three ounces
a day of safflower oil.
He thought saturated fat and meat and cream was bad
as were most carbs, except a few like potatoes.
He recommended fried foods cooked in margarine or corn oil.
Unfortunately, Dr.Taller was convicted of fraud
for selling safflower oil pills
and claiming they worked for losing weight.
He claimed he was duped by his book, publisher, Simon
and Schuster, who changed the book without his knowledge.
So I was getting very nervous about Gary's sources.
And I thought I was seeing a pattern I didn't
want to believe, which is to quote hard
to find old sources and then misrepresent them.
I just couldn't imagine a journalist
with his credentials doing that, but best to check
and make sure the next reference I chased was
a 1951 textbook that Gary said was Seminole.
The practice of endocrinology.
I checked everywhere for that book and finally found one
from a used book seller in France who wanted $144 for it.
And that's when my Googling turned
up a kindred spirit with a master's in nutrition
who had discovered the same things I did
about Gary's references.So we zoomed
- Yeah, it's, it's not easy.
A lot of his tech, a lot
of the stuff he sites are really old.
- Yeah
- Kind of obscure.
- He knew about a digital library.
I didn't the Hottie trust
and they had a scan copy of the book.
And here it is sure enough
the textbook listed eight foods to avoid not
just the five that Gary had quoted and one was excess fat.
He also eliminated the line about limiting salt
because Gary had written about salt being fine.
And he 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.
I wonder if the author felt
like most of us do about turnips.
I read through more of the texts.
And the impression I get is it's arguing
for mostly a balanced diet.
The author of that 1951 textbook is Raymond Greene
who 19 years later wrote this book
which has a chapter on obesity.
He called refined carbs criminal
but he said it doesn't apply to whole grains and vegetables.
One fascinating thing about Gary's quotes
from old sources is you can Google them and discover dozens
of health influencers who plagiarized Gary
instead of reading the original source
here's a simple but incredibly shocking example.
In 1953, ancel keys published this chart
moving to the right means more fat in the diet
moving up means more heart attacks.
Ancel Felty had reliable data for six countries
which are the ones on the chart
that chart would grab anyone's attention.
Two scientists came along four years later and said
we have more recent data.
And we have it for 22 countries.
Although some of it may not be as reliable because countries
like France and Mexico are known to have unreliable data.
Those two authors said, wow, would you look at that?
We see an unmistakable correlation too
but we wonder why it bounces around like that.
Norway eats more fat
than Finland and has fewer heart attacks.
But Hey, we made another chart
for animal protein consumption
and it has an even stronger correlation.
The more animal protein you eat
the more heart attacks you have a half century later
the journalist Gary Taubes looked
at these charts and said, Hey
once you include the 22 countries, the correlation
between dietary fat and heart disease vanishes
and let's not mention the chart
of animal protein and heart attack risk.
I mean, come on, do those two charts look like the data.
Doesn't go up to the right to you.
During the half century, after those charts were published
Ancel conducted a massive study with more
than a dozen scientists with two simple takeaways.
One areas like Greece that ate a lot of fat from olive oil.
Didn't have many heart attacks areas
like Finland that ate a lot of fat
from meat and cheese did that explains most
of the scatter in the chart and two
a plant rich Mediterranean diet is super healthy.
Here's what's so fascinating.
Gary's vanish sentence went viral on the internet
probably because cheese and bacon are delicious.
And so anyone who hasn't read the original study
thinks Ancel keys was a chump.
Gary has said, Ancel is so incompetent.
You wouldn't let him work on the plumbing in your house.
- When I made fun of the scientist, who was the worst
scientist who ever lived, one of the five worst I'd
ever interviewed, who took credit for putting us
on a low fat diet and he gets credit for it.
He celebrated his hundredth birthday
a few weeks ago.
And his mentor also lived to be over a hundred
- Scientists Who've read the studies in great detail.
As I have think Ancel was a giant of the field
and possibly a genius to Gary's great credit.
However, he did raise $40 million to fund research
at the national institutes of health, Harvard, and Stanford
to see if a carb calorie made you fat
while the fat calorie didn't.
Unfortunately the studies didn't show that.
So Gary is trying to discredit a couple
of the lead researchers.
If you want to read about that drama, I linked
to you a wired article about it, but I'll spare you.
Some of Gary's tweets, does it really matter
if certain types of calories don't magically
unlock your fat stores though, if people lose weight
on a keto diet, for whatever reason, big win, one
of the scientists that Gary funded Kevin Hall has gone
on to test the very reasonable hypothesis that maybe
the reason people lose weight on keto is because
they feel less hungry.
Awesome. One of the themes throughout the book is
that some people fat and easily, because they're different
from thin people, nutrition scientists, who are often
slender can understand that and blame it on gluttony
And sloth They fat shame. Okay.
Fat shaming is awful.
And I was about to say I don't remember
any diet book authors recently fat shaming
their readers, but then I remember the carnivore MD loves
to skinny shame, Dr.Greger on Twitter.
Of course he chooses photos of Dr. Greger
and the most unflattering position
and the worst light to maximize the shame.
Shame is going to shame, I guess.
I don't know why he hasn't soyboy ashamed guys
like Nimai Delgado.
I asked a slender doctor
if he could understand his overweight patients.
- Yeah. As someone who used to struggle with weight
I think it's horribly unfair to say
that people are automatically skinny or fat.
Took me a lot of time and work to get to a healthier place.
And no one comes to it.
Almost. No one comes to a naturally
- By the way, this is Dr. Bean on the right.
When he weighed 310 pounds
- It got easier, as I learned principles of healthy eating
but change has only come through hard work and time.
And that's true for all people.
- I caught up to 228 in my forties
as I discovered on a bungee jump in New Zealand.
And when I lost 43 by eating mostly whole plants
sometimes people would approach me and say, Oh
you're just naturally slender.
It must be nice.
And I'd think to myself, where's the credit
for passing on all those slices of luscious chocolate cake?
Oh, by the way, the smacking sounds you're probably hearing
in the background is the smells
of that chocolate cake cut the attention
of my faithful hound.
And also I should state
for the record that I don't miss chocolate cake anymore.
These little cuties are my favorite now,
even when I weighed more than I wanted
I couldn't help, but laugh at the nation's most
beloved fat shamer who had something to say
about it when he was 95, I needed to hear it back then.
- A lot of people say I'm fat.
because my dad was fat.
You're fat because you ate all that junk
that your dad was eating to make him fat
- Mr. Tops quotes, doctor Astwood as saying
we know that genes determined stature and hair color
and they determined the size of our feet.
So why can't heredity be credited
with determining one shape?
If we had doubts that this was the case
let's consider the animals, consider the pig.
He said his corpulence
and gluttony resulted from man's artificial selection.
Selective breeding provided us with this hope
with his hoggish ways and no one will convince me
that his gormandizing is provoked
by parental over solicitude.
So the reason the pigs are fat is
because of selective breeding.
So the reason humans are fat is selective breeding
because people who are obese have more children
than those who don't?
- One of the books boldest claims
is we're not to blame for the obesity crisis.
Scientists are, that's a claim
the documentary fat head makes.
- So after examining all this human history
the experts came to the obvious conclusion.
We need to eat a lot more of these.
And so they convinced us that human health depends on foods.
We didn't eat for more than 99% of our entire existence.
- Here is the logic, the nutritional
and academic authorities have failed us.
And they, we should acknowledge that
had they not failed us we would never
have reached this point of epidemic obesity
all this time I never knew that evil scientist
made evil carbs so yummy, convenient and cheap
that immigrants to our country who are naturally slender
in their own countries are suddenly predisposed to
fatten easily when they come to America.
So why all the inflammatory language
and sign is shaming in this book?
Well, I don't think we have to guess
because I think Gary tells us after my 2002 article
I was accused of taking a contrarian perspective.
Not because I really thought the evidence supported it
but because it was more newsworthy
and would earn me a large book contract reporting
that the conventional wisdom was indeed right.
Would not the editors
of the New York times magazine might not even
have published such a version
because it wouldn't have been news.
He also wrote the books that can be counted on to sell well
are those that promise weight loss and weight control.
Ideally with the little effort as if by magic
in his effort to discredit conventional wisdom
sometimes he really does just make things up.
I know it sounds like I'm making that up
but I'll let Gary tell his side of the story.
Then I'll tell mine and you can choose
Gary's side. As for the idea that a healthy diet
must be mostly plants that it must include fruits
vegetables, whole grains, pulses and legumes.
We don't have even the ambiguous 1960s era
studies to support it.
We have no meaningful clinical trial evidence to
support this idea.
My side, doing a pubmed search
on plant-based diets turns out 9,431 results.
If you limit the search to randomized
controlled trials you get 522.
There are many great studies in there.
I know because I've read dozens of them.
A related and very disturbing thing
to me was the deafening silence about mortality.
Just go to Google and enter keto mortality
and you'll get a long list of grim search results.
So let's compare two books.
I'm very familiar with one that helps people
lose weight by eating mostly whole plants.
And one that helps them lose weight
by reducing almost all carbs.
Let's call it a draw for losing the pounds
as if by magic, without hunger
which I think most studies show
they each get five points for ditching process foods.
Four points for Gary for actually funding respected science
minus two points for Gary
for trying to wreck the reputations
of some scientists he funded
after the studies reported their results.
Two points to Dr. Greger for asking Seth
to fact check how not to die.
Dr. Greger reached out to me.
This was like 2015.
I think he asked me to help fact check one
of his books, how not to die.
So I feel pretty confident
about the things and the things in that book.
- Minus two points to Gary for blowing Seth off
as disgruntled two points to Dr.Greger for solid references
minus two to Gary for insane references,
three points to Greger for the latest science.
One point to Gary for historical science,
five points to Greger for addressing
all the leading causes of death.
One point to Gary for addressing diabetes
minus three points to Gary for not addressing mortality.
Three points to Greger for being all about mortality.
Two points to Greger for donating
all the proceeds of his book to charity.
Minus two points to Gary for releasing a book in the middle
of a pandemic and not even mentioning the link
between food animals and infectious diseases.
Two points to Dr. Greger for publishing
how to survive a pandemic three points
to Greger for addressing the environmental impact
of farming animals for food.
That means a lot to me as an earth scientist
minus three points to Gary for ignoring
the environmental impact of animal agriculture
on the planet We all live on.
- Let's say we have two very different diets,
both of which can result in weight loss.
And one of them is horrific for the planet
or as Mr.Tops puts it not the best for the planet.
She don't mean to be focusing on the one that actually
helps our planet heal it's in crisis.
- So I promise to give my opinion at the end
about whether Gary's a quack and I've decided, no
I don't think quack is the right word
because he's not a doctor and to me anyway
the word quack implies you may be misinformed,
honestly after all this work I think the most
accurate words are the ones that Gary
used in his 2000 paper.
What if it's all a big fat lie? I think it is.
- He misrepresented it so grotesquely
this stuff and it, it made me mad.