I remember a not to long ago I caught the movie remake of Born Yesterday with Melanie Griffin and Don Johnson on TV. If not aware the movie is a tale of a "dumb" girl trying to smarten herself up so that she can stand along side her shady loads of wealth businessman (John Goodman) of a boyfriend. Goodman has brought them to Washington with dreams of putting in his pocket even more wealth and hopefully not in just currency but in dirty politicians. This is to be fiction correct%u2026.

Don Johnson job is to tutor Griffin and one of her first assignments is to read Alexis DeTocqueville's "DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA". The purpose of Griffin reading the book is it is expressed that if you can get through the book and understand it then you have to be, by some men's judgment, an intelligent person.









What amuses me most about the movie is when she starts to read the book she chooses to discuss the book with a local Washington radio personality, if memory serves. Radio or not this women is a who's who, a highly vocal critique, a mind to be reckoned with by the eyes of most politicians on capital hill. Griffin expresses her reading of Tocque and asks her "what her favorite part was"? The woman tosses aside the question in this manner of 'what kind of simpleton are you?' 'To think it is the kind of book to have a favorite part'. Griffin shoots back with her favorite part and the women is left speechless and states that and I am paraphrasing here, that "no one has actually read Democracy In America, they just say they have".

So the end point here of course is the "dumb" girl accomplishes a literary feat of reading and understanding an American classic that those who should understand it don't. It also presents the fact that intelligence is really pretty relevant and in the eyes of the judger.

I bring this all up, my long intro about a flop of a mid 90's movie, because I feel that Good Calories, Bad Calories is one such book. At 460 pages plus100 pages of notes and a bibliography, this isn't a hard read persea but a long read. It is full of thought provoking material and opinions that stretch outside the norm. Am I saying it is a new American classic? Absolute not, not even close, not one bit but in a way yes, yes it is.

It shouldn't be a classic because it is a masterpiece of truth. It shouldn't be a classic because it breaks some new ground and hits upon this world never before traveled. It shouldn't be a classic because it's the clever, exciting, or gripping!

It should be considered an American classic because just like most of Americans we can say it so wrong and do so much bad in such a short format. It is a classic example of just another guy with a one sided point of view, a cherry picker. Our society would not be what it is if not for the classic cherry picker.









Okay so I ruffled your feathers. Before I rip apart Taubes for what he did wrong, and there is a lot to pick apart, please allow me to point out what he did right. At the same time this is precisely why this book angers me so much because Taubes, by his own account, if he would have just read his own book, should have known better.

If the book was called "Good Studies, Bad Studies", and Taube would have stuck to giving it to the government and companies for their complete unethical method of changing our society based on some very sketchy rulings and findings then I would be standing beside Taubes patting him on the back for a work well done. Not that it is anything new anyway, but certainly a great collection of material that shows how full of holes or research and guidelines in this country are.

This book was incredibly well written and easy to follow, especially considering the topics of information. If any of you have ever actually tried to read studies you know that they are a headache even for the smartest of individuals. Studies really are written like stereo instruction or much like I imagine the "Handbook for the Recently Deceased". It is really a different language, a geek one. The average person, with a lot of effort, could understand but will unlikely take the time to do so.









To compile this information into a book for the average Joe to understand, to explain to them these technical things in this manner, he really did a top-notch job. He also didn't skimp on the references or notes. This man did not just draw up some opinions here, he dug and read and dug and read some more. There are 100 pages alone of just notes and references, which is why I really want to shake him and just say "Gary, you have been staring at this big boat for hours but still can't tell me the color of it". Perhaps there will be a 2nd edition and those mistakes will be rectified as there is little to no reference on exercise physiology, and here in lies one of the big problems, the other of course is the witch hunt on carbohydrates. It was so close to being a masterpiece, but just in classic American form, he messes it all up. Again, an American classic.

(End Part 1)




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