In recent years conventional wisdom on obesity and diabetes has shifted. Carbs have replaced fat as the new villain; new fad diets urge drastic reductions in carbohydrate intake and add consumption of fats to combat weight gain.
But laying blame on carbs misses the point, according to Gary Taubes (Good Calories, Bad Calories). There hasn't been enough public discourse on sugar as a primary cause of diabetes, heaviness, and obesity, he argues. Taubes says sugar destroys the body's ability to regulate fat and he suggests that, like tobacco, sugar is a drug; in fact, it's a key ingredient in cigarettes, increasing their addictiveness. The Case Against Sugar reckons with an inconvenient truth: Western civilization's centuries-old sweet tooth is a devastating addiction that kills.
With clear language and a skeptical eye, Taubes--a physicist and award-winning science and health journalist--lays out the causes for alarm (epidemic rates of obesity and type 2 diabetes) and the history of sugar production and consumption (which reinforced colonialism). He explains the science and the context of scientific thinking on the subject. "If this were a criminal case," reads his author's note, "The Case Against Sugar would be the argument for the prosecution." Taubes makes an unacknowledged pivot from the thesis of his last book (Why We Get Fat), which argued for low-carb diets. Now it's specifically sugar he's after, not just for its "empty calories" (a framing he dislikes), but for its long-term effects on our endocrine system. --Zak Nelson, writer and bookseller