Amy, have you covered this article on your blog before?

http://reason.com/archives/2003/03/01/big-fat-fake/

Just curious about any rebuttals against the article (it's a bit old so I assume Gary Taubes has put something out to defend himself).

I'm going to disagree. I think nutritional information ought to be posted, so people can make informed decisions. Including carbs per serving. Especially in our era of processed foods, when there is a lot of hidden crap in stuff that you wouldn't expect.

The government has a legitimate interest in public health. Requiring businesses that profit from poor dietary choices to provide more transparent information to consumers about just how poor a choice their products are seems like a fairly non-intrusive way to encourage better choices. Presumably, if profits go down after the regulation takes effect, the affected businesses may make their product lines a bit healthier.

Having the regulation only affect businesses with 20 or more points of sale is obviously to avoid "hurting the little guy."

If it's so bad for us why not just outlaw it!

Oh, it's bad for you, but as long as we get our cut of the money, eat away.

Doesn't give me a lot of confidence in our government.

If it's so bad for us why not just outlaw it!

And if it were outlawed, everyone would have their panties in a knot about that.

I'm glad for this. I want to know what's in my food. And my food-like products.

Everything I've ever bought from a vending machine has all that information on the wrapper. Okay so you have to take that gamble with your 75 cents and buy the item first, but if you're really that suprised at the amount of calories, sugar, and fat in a Snickers I am unsympathetic.

I don't even understand where they're going to put this information, where is there room on a vending machine?

So NicoleK, the inclusion of nutritional information on all packaged products for the last 40 years has increased the health of Americans and prevented something like say an obesity epidemic?

Karen, why is government's interest in our health or any other personal matter legitimate? And why do I need a label to tell me the obvious ... that a doughnut is probably bad for me? Isn't it more likely that the extra regulation and cost will only hurt the consumer's pocket book and ultimately limit choices with no resulting health benefits?

Gretchen, this is an ancient critique of a paper that was the precursor to Taubes book "Good Calories Bad Calories." It would be more relevant to read the critiques and rebuttals to this book. Here are a few:

http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/low-carb-library/gary-taubes-strikes-back/

http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/lipid-hypothesis/more-on-tierney-taubes-and-saturated-fat/

BTW, the critique you link to was written by low-fat diet book guru Gina Kolata, so it's not surprising that she would take offense to Taubes premise. She's built a career on lipophobia and her confirmation bias kicked into overdrive.

Oops, Gina Kolata did not write the critique that Gretchen linked to. However, she did write a critique on "Good Calories, Bad Calories."

How many Americans can honestly say they don't the simple truth, that if its the type of food product that can be sold via vending machine, its probably not very good for you? And how many simply don't care?

Buncha Communisss.

If it comes in a brown paper bag with, as Garrison Keillor says, "the grease spots that spell FRESHNESS!" it's probably delicious but not good for you. Maybe they should package it in the Red Paper Bags of Shame.

And who is Gina Kolata, and please please please does she have a sister named Pina?

Amy and AllenS:

Yeah I know it's an "ancient" article but I just wanted his/other peoples rebuttals. Thank you for supplying them for me!!

I don't mind too much if junk food prices go up. For tightwads like myself, that's one excuse to stop buying it. (One tightwad rule is: Do not buy junk food that's on sale. You'll only eat it, and fatness is expensive in the long run - think about the new clothes you'd need, for starters!)

Hi Amy,

I wanted to tell you how happy I am that you are peppering your posts with info about Gary Taubes and the whole carb-obesity connection.

I have struggled with overweight for a long time ever since my thyroid went all wacky. There are autoimmune diseases all through my family. Immediate siblings alone have lupus, celiac, juvenile diabetes and three of us have hypothyroid. About 2 years ago my thyroid went wacky (TSH 69 if that means anything to you), I gained 80 lbs (had always been about 25ish over) and lost a lot of my hair. Started researching on my own and found lots of stuff on the net that led me to a natural med (it's called THYROID here in Canada and Armour or Naturthroid in the US) that has worked wonders. The best part of this journey has been discovering the work of people like Gary Taubes and Stephan Guyenet (www.wholehealthsource.blogspot.com) and Dr. Kurt Harris at the PaNu blog.

I started what I call my "program" in March of 2010. It's a blend of Low Carb/ Paleolithic nutrition. Wednesday is weigh in day and I hit the the 50lb loss mark today! Since March. That's a very consistent average of about 2lbs per week. I can't tell you how elated I am. I have struggled with this for sooooo long. The great thing about it is that I never feel hungry and sometimes do indeed forget to eat. I have completely changed my metabolism and I no longer crave junk food and sugar. It's freaking amazing. To see that new food pyramid come out and be so carb heavy at the top is plain insanity. People like Fumento can say what they want. I am proof that this SCIENCE works. Stephan Guyenet especially has taught me a lot. His blog is not selling anything. He is working on a PhD in body fat metabolism (I think.) This is just science and it works.I am proof. And as far as what Fumento says about being able to lose on protein fat or carb as long as calories are low, well that is straight up bullsh**. It's WHAT you eat. I have lost this weight eating between 1800-2200 calories per day. Screw you Weight Watchers and your $20.00 a week and 12oo calories! I am never hungry and if I am, I eat. It's all about WHAT you choose. Nothing processed, no sugar, only certain quantities. Lots of grass-fed protein, and full fat cream and artisanal cheese. And lots of fresh non-carb veg. I learned from Dr. Guyenet about what happens to the food and how it breaks down. I want to scream this info from the rooftops. What a shaft we have been getting from the low-fat drum beaters. And my labs and lipid profiles? PERFECT. Doctor was astounded.

Anyway, just wanted to say thanks. This info needs to get out there in the mainstream.

One of the blogs I follow, The Healthy Fellow, did and excellent interview series with Dr Feinman. You should check it out. The other two parts are linked at the bottom of the interview. If you liked Taubes, you'll like this.

http://www.healthyfellow.com/588/dr-richard-feinman-interview-part-one/

*that should have said ..."only certain quantities of fruit."

Amy, for the record, Hashimoto's disease is a disease, and hypothyroidism is a condition. Hypothyroidism is often caused by Hashimoto's but terms are not interchangeable. If you have Hashimoto's (and I do!) you have an autoimmune disorder and will have it for the rest of your life. I no longer have a thyroid because my body destroyed it (why all the hate on my thyroid--who knows!) but as long as I take the medication every day and follow the diet guidelines I'm fine. Your friends thyroid levels are probably normal, and a low carb diet is very helpful for Hashimoto's (as well as high fiber--go figure!) and it's easy to keep levels normal that way but Hashimoto's is for life and if he has an endocrinologist telling him otherwise he should get a new doctor. It also runs in families so if he has kids they should be tested on a regular basis.

Girls: If you cram that chocolate bar up your rear instead of in your mouth, you won't get fat, and your boyfriend will call you "Sugar-Butt." Or maybe "Sweet Shits."

The labeling of food means people are making a CHOICE to eat stuff that's bad for them. It gives you the option to not eat it.

I'm a bit confused, though, this labeling has been around as long as I can remember, assuming my memory begins at age 3 or so... a good 30 years, so why are we writing about it now? I don't mean vending machines per se (obviously most of what is in there is crap) but at the grocery store and places like that.

Amy, come on, wouldn't you be pissed if it turned out something that you assumed was meat ended up being full of carbs?

For anyone interested in the absolute utter importance of diet and Hashimoto's Disease go to Chris Kresser's Blog The Healthy Skeptic. www.thehealthyskeptic.org He challenges the mainstream myths abiut nutrition, health and disease. He did a fascinating series on the thyroid and diet and gluten and Vitamin D. Here's his post on why changing the diet is always the first step in treating Hashimotos.

http://thehealthyskeptic.org/why-changing-your-diet-is-always-the-first-step-in-treating-hashimotos

And Amy, when I went to the doc, my thyroid was beginning to produce its own hormone again and my meds were lowered as well. All because of my diet change.

*about

Sticking labels all over vending machines and fast-food menus isn't going to make a damn bit of difference as to what anyone chooses to eat. Here's why: (1) alarm fatigue. Every single bleepin' thing in our society is already completely saturated in warning labels. No one pays the slightest bit of attention to them anymore. They've become part of the scenery. A product would look abnormal if it *didn't* have any warning labels. Heck, in California, even the buildings come with warning labels. (The state of California knows, with its "other way of knowing", that all building materials cause cancer.)

(2) Nutrition, as a science, is pretty near totally discredited. It's about as accurate as tarot-card reading and a lot less entertaining. Is coffee good for you or bad for you? Nutritionists don't know. They have no reliable data to support either position. In fact, with a very few exceptions, they have no reliable data to support any position they take on anything. The field is full of people and groups that are basically professional fundraisers -- they're really good at scaring the public, and really good at lobbying, and really lousy at supporting their assertions with evidence.

I have found the fast food menu's with calories next to them to be helpful. They don't have them where I am at but some place I visited did.

I was surprised for some of the items. Some things where much worse, others much better than I expected. Not that anything would be great. At one place the large order of fries was over 1000 calories -- part of that is it was huge based on what I saw of other peoples orders (as in one order supported an Idaho farmer for a day). Another places had Onion rings where a small was only 200 calories.

Wait -- they're going to start making Snickers bars that look exactly like a big steak?

The way food is played with today I would not be surprised to have many of Snickers' ingredients in a big "steak." A friend was just telling me that he was going to get Sushi with a friend, but she couldn't eat it because she has a wheat allergy and they used some wheat product to help bind the rice together.

I'm really getting sick of these people (nanny-statists).

Actually, it already changed my behavior in Philly. I mean I knew a California Pizza Kitchen pizza was bad for me, but I didn't realize HOW bad. I thought it was 800 or 900 calories, so I thought if I ate 2/3 of it I was getting 600 or so calories. It was about 1200. Not that I often go to CPK, but now when I do, I order differently.

Of course, I no longer live in Philly.

And Amy, you laugh, but hidden ingredients can pop up in stuff. Obviously I'm thinking more about restaurants than vending machines. In Philly they also list the carbs.

Frankly, if you have to trick people or blindfold them to get them to buy your product, it ain't a good product.

Karen:

The government has a legitimate interest in public health.

They do? Funny, I don't remember reading anything about that in the Constitution.

Look, let me tell you what this is about: control. Government has an interest in controlling the lives of its subjects.

We weren't supposed to be subjects. That's what the whole war thing back in the late 1700's was all about.

Posting nutritional information at restaurants probably won't stop the obesity crisis, but it's a helpful tool for people who are already health-conscious. Many restaurant foods seem intuitively healthy but aren't-like salads that pack over 1500 calories-and nothing is more frusterating than blowing a whole day's worth of calories on what you thought was a healthy choice. I try to look up nutrional info online before I go to a restaurant, but having the information onhand would be so much more helpful.

Also, I think a lot of people aren't really conscious of how much they eat. When you hear an overweight person protest that they really don't eat that much, it's usually not true; rather they're just seriously underestimating how many calories they take in. Seeing the nutritional information staring you in the face might be a wake-up call for someone who's in denial, or who just genuinely has no idea how many calories something has.

And Amy-you don't need to count calories because carb restriction naturally lowers your calorie intake, but I doubt you're eating 4000 calories of salami and cheese every day either. If you can stay within a healthy range of calories without counting then more power to you, but some people benefit from at least keeping a ballpark of their intake.

Amy- I agree. This makes sense for restaurants but not for vending machines, where the nutritional information is already printed on the products.

I just finished a couple of months of a calorie counting diet. I'm not trying to loose weight but had a chance to try out a free BodyBugg. I worked out great, incidentally.

Anyway one perverse effect of calorie counting (or Na or fat, choose your metric) is that it tends to push the dieter away from fresh food into packaged and chain restaurants that publish the data. I assume the end goal of the folks pushing this would be to see apples and oranges next to the butterfingers. But requiring nutritional facts is more likely to quash that than encourage it.