F1nite

The Case Against Sugar [Review]

The Case Against Sugar, by Gary Taubes, is a book about why sugar is bad. I think it's a good book -- and I guess I'll try to summarize it here and then say some thoughts on this book in general and reading in general.

(Note: Whenever the word "sugar" is mentioned, it is in reference to sucrose, fructose, and High-Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) -- basically a mixture of fructose and glucose. All uses of the word "sugar" are meant to refer to the processed, simple carbohydrates; not starches such as those found in bread.)

The Book

This book, which Taubes describes as "the prosecution's case against sugar" really is like a prosecutorial case. Most of the time, Taubes is on the offensive; and when he acknowledges counterarguments, he does so lightly and always by hammering back with some sort of rebuttal. In that way, this book is biased, this one moreso than others, but in a way I think makes perfect sense -- Taubes is trying to dislodge an engrained belief (Dietary fat == bad), and his book is ultimately trying to draw attention to the issue of sugar and spark modern conversations and research towards the questions of sugar. As such, if he said "yeah the case against sugar is murky because we have competing pieces of evidence from different time periods" and so on and so forth, it would NOT be a compelling read for the layperson and it would more or less just be another academic review paper that ends up not being too meaningful all things considered.

The main summary point to take away is to eat less sugar. Not that sugar is necessarily proven to be bad (in the same way McKinsey perhaps is), but that avoiding it will probably lead to greater good than bad. Why? Well first, Taubes looks at sugar historically -- really giving an overview of sugar in the medieval times and then emphasizing the nature of sugar from the 1900s onwards; how sugar and tobacco proved to be lethal in the form of cigarettes, how modern sugar consumption has correlated shockingly well with the spread of diabetes (something something low blood pressure because low blood sugar), and how the sugar industry cleverly sorta hid itself in the background and directed all the rage and attention of dietary critics and nutritionists (at least in the US) towards dietary fats.
On this point on dietary fats, Taubes notes the pretty weak connection between saturated fat/dietary fat/unsaturated fat and the 'modern Western diseases' -- Diabetes, Hypertension, Alzheimer's, and others -- and claims that there is a stronger connection between sugar and those same 'modern Western diseases'. He also ultimately goes into the science behind it all -- explaining in some regards why sugar is bad, by first linking the connection between sugar in insulin levels (fructose's role in the liver, glucose in insulin production or something), and then linking insulin levels to various evils. In the last chapter then, he ties everything together by examining the various 'Western diseases' and all of their ties back to sugar (or really insulin resistance, of which sugar is seen to be a primary cause of), and concludes saying the evidence is inconclusive but in no regards vague or uncertain -- while definitive research has not been undertaken (largely thanks to what Taubes sees as a misguided war on fat) to establish connections between sugar and disease, it seems safe to say that simple sugars play a partial if not full and non-trivial role in causing such diseases to arise. Thus, the recommendation at the end to cut back on sugar.

Yet Taubes also acknowledges the weirdness of sugar's role in modern society. Remove it, and many of the foods we eat daily become off limits. As such, there's no way to give up sugar entirely in the same way one can quit smoking entirely. There's also no way to directly measure sugar's impacts; you can follow smokers and non-smokers and do some massive statistical analysis and conclude smoking implies lung cancer, but given that very little groups of people (besides remote tribes) consume low amounts of sugar, it's very hard to say how much sugar is a good amount. Furthermore, despite making extensive connections to these remote tribes, there's no surefire way to know the long-term effects of sugar; things like diabetes usually don't spring up in the 20s or 30s, and given the role of genetics as well as other societal factors, it will be very hard to deduce sugar's impact on specific individuals. All that can be (and is in the book) investigated are aggregate statistics of populations.

Important Things I Learned

While reading this book, I learned:

  1. Sugar is not necessarily good. The alleged hypothesis of attack is that over sugar consumption leads to insulin resistance which in turn leads to being way more at risk to modern Western diseases (cancer, alzheimers, diabetes, obesity (if you count that), gout, hypertension). That second part seems to have been essentially proven, and that first part seems to have some evidence going for it and is alleged.
  2. A calorie is not the same everywhere. While 'Big Sugar' has lobbied for this to be the case, calories from different food groups and of different compositions are NOT handled in the same way by our body. In particular, the calories from simple sugars (Sucrose, Fructose, HFCS, Glucose to a lesser extent) are handled differently by our body than calories from complex sugars which are also handled differently than protein/fat calories. As such, this book implicates sugars specifically rather than starches in general. Starches in general seem to be ok.
  3. How scheming the sugar industry is.
  4. How addicting sugar is. There's a reason why sugar colonies were set up everywhere during the age of colonization -- they were hella fucking profitable. Apparently, back when the US was in its infancy, its main cash crop was not cotton and not tobacco, it was sugar. That's what really made the early US their money.
  5. Sugar seems to be linked to obesity. Taubes has written a whole nother book about this that I haven't read so obviously I don't know the minute details but it seems like to stop getting fat, cut down on sugar. In fact, just cut down on calories in general, but (processed, simple) sugar in particular seems to be the thing making people fat.

On Reading

Reading is hard for me. I knew I was learning some key information, but lowkey as the pages went by, sometimes it was hard to keep on reading; I wanted to do something else 'more productive' or whatever. I think this is probably because I was playing a lot of videogames so that was really kicking into my brain, but remembering a key insight from Cal Newport's Deep Work -- that giving into those impulses strengthens them and makes them habits, I've been successfully beating my impulses most of the time.
Anyways, I also felt like I was in a rush to finish. Reading should not be about racing, but during the course of this book, I fell into a rabbit hole; I bought some more books from my local public libraries, and placed holds on probably 10+ books just based on other people's book recommendations. As such, if I wanted to get through all my books, I needed to read fast, hence the pressure. Ultimately, just reading day by day and building that solid consistency is probably the best way to read quickly, as well as utilizing in-between time to read if possible.

The Meta-Take Against Sugar

Disclaimer: I think Gary Taubes is a good guy who is doing great things and probably is a cool person to meet. However,
There's this weird thing about books (specifically non-fiction, the type I read) in that in these sorta expose/recommendation books, books are pointing every which way. Ok great, I read about why sugar is bad. Now onto another book on why fat is bad. And another on why red meat is bad. And another on why seafood is bad. And another on why eggs are actually secretly bad food. If I keep going down this food rabbit hole, eventually I'm gonna stop eating everything besides grass or something and that's not exactly the 'right' way to live. As such, in some sense, the books I read are selective; I have now read about the evils of sugar, yet I neglect to read the next book highlighting the evils of salt and sodium or something. As such, ultimately, the thing I take away from this book is to be more aware of sugar -- not to cut it out entirely or cut it drastically but simply be aware of the detrimental effects it is likely to have.
And for me, that feels a little sobering; I've read this whole book implicating sugar, yet knowing the many other books out there, the best thing and probably most beneficial thing I can do is simply 'be aware' of sugar and maybe eat a little less of it. That doesn't feel like a stellar result of my time. That then makes it seem like all for nothing. But it's whatever -- that's just life; some books hit, some books don't. (P.S: Check out my Book Rec list (also on the navigation bar)!)

Bottom line is that even though the jury is still out deliberating the effects of sugar, convicted or not, the public should still be wary of sugar.

I give this book a 9.5/10 -- it's a good read.