Gary TaubesGary Taubes

Gary Taubes

Journalist, author, and co-founder of the Nutrition Science Initiative

Gary Taubes is a contributing correspondent for Science magazine. His writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The New York Times Magazine, Esquire, and The Best of the Best American Science Writing (2010). He has received three Science in Society Journalism Awards from the National Association of Science Writers, the only print journalist so recognized. He is currently a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Investigator in Health Policy Research at the University of California, Berkeley School of Public Health. He lives in Oakland. More: garytaubes.com.

Philosopher's Notes on Gary Taubes's Books

Why We Get Fat
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Why We Get Fat

by Gary Taubes

Why do we get fat? It’s a surprisingly simple question that surprisingly few nutrition experts answer with attention to scientific rigor. Enter: Gary Taubes, a brilliant, award-winning science journalist. In this Note we’ll explore some Big Ideas on the importance of the hormone insulin, why carbs are kinda like cigarettes and the Stanford A TO Z Study that showed low-carb diets outperforming others.

The Case Against Sugar
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The Case Against Sugar

by Gary Taubes

Gary Taubes is an award-winning science journalist. He’s a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Investigator in Health Policy Research at the University of California, Berkeley School of Public Health. In this book, we take up the case against sugar as the primary suspect for ALL of the chronic diseases that are killing us. As the back cover says, Taubes “makes the convincing case that sugar is the tobacco of the new millennium: backed by powerful lobbies, entrenched in our lives, and making us very sick.” Big Ideas we explore include: the prime suspect (= sugar), drug or food?, two theories (energy balance vs. metabolic theory), sugar as a chronic toxin (vs. acute), sugar as candy for cancer cells, and the big question: how little is too much?

The Case for Keto
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The Case for Keto

by Gary Taubes

We’ve featured two of Gary Taubes’ other great books: Why We Get Fat and The Case Against Sugar. If you or a loved one have struggled with reaching your optimal weight while trying to follow the conventional wisdom that all you have to do is eat less and exercise more, I think you, too, will enjoy Taubes’s thoughtful perspective on just how flawed our current thinking is regarding the cause of obesity. Hint: It’s not an “energy balance” issue; it’s primarily a HORMONAL issue. The book is PACKED with Big Ideas. As in, jumbo packed. Hope you love the Note!

Quotes by Gary Taubes

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