PositiveThe GuardianLike many US books of its type, there’s a high level of detail in this volume as Taubes unpicks the history of the ubiquitous dogmas dominating diet thinking today that may send the less committed reader looking for an executive summary. But this density and thoroughness befits the scale of the task such authors face: nothing more or less than reversing an entrenched diet orthodoxy in which powerful professional reputations and corporate interests are heavily invested. Taubes isn’t the only person to challenge the facile idea that we get fat simply because we consume more calories than we expend, but his clear and persuasive argument that obesity is a hormonal disorder, switched on by sugar, is one that urgently needs wider airing.
