Good Calories, Bad Calories: Fats, Carbs, and the Controversial Science of Diet and Health
For decades we have been taught that fat is bad for us, carbohydrates better, and that the key to a healthy weight is eating less and exercising more. Yet despite this advice, we have seen unprecedented epidemics of obesity and diabetes. Taubes argues that the problem lies in refined carbohydrates, like white flour, easily digested starches, and sugars, and that the key to good health is the kind of calories we take in, not the number.
Carbohydrates are present in food comprising of digestible sugars and starches and indigestible cellulose and other dietary fibres. The former are the major source of energy. The sugars are in beet and cane sugar, fruits, honey, sweet corn, corn syrup, milk and milk products, etc.; the starches are in cereal grains, legumes, tubers, etc. In patients with hepatic forms of porphyria, a person should consume at least 350 mg of carbohydrate per day, or the carbohydrates should make up 60-65 per cent of the daily consumption.
