A Diet Manifesto: Drop the Apple and Walk Away

The New York Times reports:

How is a person best advised to lose extra weight and retreat from diabetes and heart disease? Count calories, cut fat and fill up on fruits and vegetables? Or turn instead to a high-protein, high-fat regimen like the one popularized by Dr. Robert C. Atkins?

The experts point vehemently in all directions. And so in one corner this month we find the chief executive of Weight Watchers — one of the calorie-driven, “balanced diet” options — gleefully announcing on the radio that he was giving out fruit baskets for Christmas in honor of his organization’s new “Plus Points” program, in which fruit can be freely eaten.

In the opposite corner we have Gary Taubes, the science journalist who has thrown in his lot with the high-fat, high-protein crowd, arguing in his new book that the overweight should just put down their apples and walk away: “If we’re predisposed to put on fat, it’s a good bet that most fruit will make the problem worse, not better.”

You'll want to read this one.