What I'm Reading This Week: Gary Taubes

I'm initiating a weekly (I hope) blog post about what I'm reading. I find all sorts of interesting things and I figure I'll pass them along.

I'm really excited about Gary Taubes new book, Good Calories, Bad Calories. I'm tired of being relegated to the lunatic fringe or into the diet fads category. The food that I eat is more normal than the Standard American Diet. It looks like the wave that it is going to wash out low-fat dogma is building more and more.

Gary Taubes just had a feature article in the NYT Magazine that is worth checking out: Do We Really Know What Makes Us Healthy? It is very eye opening about the unreliability of epidemiological studies. Additionally, he has responded to readers questions about his article and there is some great information there. Be sure to pay attention to the Q and A about relative risk vs. absolute risk. It is a commonly used statistical distortion and we should all be questioning medical recommendations that are based on relative risk.

If you're enjoying that go ahead and check out his 2001 article: What If It's All Been A Big Fat Lie?

Can't get enough Gary? Here ya go:

Interview with Gary Taubes

The Soft Science of Dietary Fat -This was originally published in the journal Science.