Drop Dead Healthy by A. Jacobs (books to read to increase intelligence .TXT) 📕

and no milk. Campbell doesn’t like to call the diet “vegan,” since that carries political tones. But essentially, it’s vegan. So that’s one side.

The other side is best represented by the aforementioned Gary Taubes, a brilliant journalist who wrote the books Good Calories, Bad Calories and Why We Get Fat. One of his big theses is that the low-fat diet is a sham. It’s based on faulty science. In fact, America adopted the low-fat diet in the 1970s. That’s the exact same era when the obesity epidemic began. The low-fat diet, he argues, has been a giant belly flop.

The real culprit isn’t fat. It’s carbohydrates—especially refined carbs. Here’s Taubes: “Insulin puts fat in fat cells. That’s what it does. And our insulin levels, for the most part, are determined by the carb-content of our diet—the quantity and quality of the carbohydrates consumed.” The more concentrated the sugar in our carbs, the more dangerous they are.

Taubes and his camp recommend restricting carbs as much as possible, especially processed carbs, high-glycemic carbs (like bananas), and starchy carbs (like potatoes). Instead, they recommend eating more protein and good fats. They eat a lot of lean beef, eggs, fish, and all sorts of vegetables (spinach and broccoli, for instance). But little grain.

I’ll tell you where I’ve stood for the last decade or so: On the spectrum, I’ve leaned more toward The China Study side. I’m not vegan. I still eat eggs and salmon. But I don’t eat beef, pork, or lamb. I used to call myself a quasi-vegetarian. Now I prefer the trendier term “flexitarian.”

There are two reasons I lean this way.

The first is because I’m biased. My lovable, eccentric aunt Marti has been drilling antimeat information into my brain since I was a kid. She’s showed me videos of the horrors of slaughterhouses. She’s told me about each and every carcinogen allegedly found in meat. She’ll make animal products as unappetizing as possible. If I’m eating ice cream, she’ll say, “Are you enjoying your mucus? Because that’s what ice cream is, essentially. Congealed mucus.” If I’m eating honey, she’ll ask, “How’s the bee vomit?”

Her passion is hard to forget. I still remember one dinner at my grandfather’s house. The whole extended family was there, and Marti, at the time, refused to eat at the same table where flesh was being served. Half the family was fine with that. But the other half wanted chicken. The solution? We had to set up two separate tables in the dining room—a meat table and a nonmeat table. My diplomatic grandparents didn’t want to take sides, so they sat at a third table in the middle, a dietary DMZ.

The second reason I opt for the plant-based diet is that, in technical matters, I tend to accept the beliefs of most scientists.

This semiblind acceptance is an unfortunate result of the arcanization of scientific knowledge. If I lived in the nineteenth century, I could judge for myself whether I thought Mendel’s study on peas made sense. But can I judge whether C-reactive protein is a better predictor of heart disease than LDL levels? Not without devoting several months of my life to that single question. It’s why I believe in global warming. If a survey by the National Academy of Sciences finds that 97 percent of climate scientists believe in man-made climate change, I feel it’s wise to accept their view.

This stance has its downsides. Science isn’t perfect, and suffers from biases, fads, and fraud. But the upsides outweigh the dangers.

And right now the majority of scientists advocate a diet with lots of plants and reduced animal-based fats and protein. Even the USDA’s 2011 dietary guidelines inch toward the plant-based side. In the past, some nutritionists slammed the USDA Food Pyramid for being too heavily influenced by the pro-meat agriculture lobby. But the latest version took the step of recommending minimal animal protein. You can see it in the 2011 MyPlate, in which protein makes up just 20 percent of the ideal meal, with beans strongly recommended.

But I don’t ignore Taubes’s advice. He makes a persuasive case against simple carbs, one that has altered what I put in my mouth. I’m now loath to put anything white in my mouth, not counting cauliflower and straws (the latter of which may help cut down on corrosion to the teeth, especially if they are placed in the back of the tongue).

Shopping the Perimeters

To help me figure out the healthiest diet, I decide I need a guided tour of the grocery. I called Marion Nestle, a professor at New York University, author of What to Eat, and a highly respected thinker in all things nutritional. She met me at Whole Foods in midtown New York.

I chose Whole Foods not just because it’s got lots of healthy food. But also because it’s got lots of unhealthy food disguised as healthy food. Sugar and fat in antioxidant clothing. And I’m a sucker for faux health food.

It’s been a significant portion of my diet for the past decade. I eat sweetened granola bars and organic cereal that tastes like off-brand versions of Frosted Flakes. An embarrassing confession: I used to drink VitaminWater. Look at that, I said to myself, it’s got green tea extract! If I’d been around in the nineteenth century, I’d be the first to say, Yes, Mr. Barnum, I would like to see the egress. Sounds fascinating.

I’m aware on some level VitaminWater is gussied-up sugar water—a bottle contains 32.5 grams of sugar, nearly as much as a can of Coca-Cola Classic’s 39 grams. But I still like eating and drinking this ersatz health food. It gives me a virtuous feeling, even if that virtue is unfounded. At least I’m doing something, you know? And it says “Healthy” right there on the package.

I meet Nestle—whose name, incidentally, is pronounced NESS-el, not like the Toll House cookie makers—at the bottom of the escalator. She’s with her boyfriend, Mal Nesheim, a well-respected (and farm-raised) Cornell University nutrition professor.

Nestle wants to make it clear she’s