Good Calories, Bad Calories

ROBERT ATKINS, author of Dr. Atkins’ Diet Revolution, testifying before Congress, April 12, 1973

THERE ARE TWO MOMENTS IN THE HISTORY OF George McGovern’s Senate Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs when the competing paradigms of nutrition and obesity can be captured in the act of shifting—one coming, one going. The first was in April 1973, during a hearing that the committee held on the subject of obesity and fad diets. Appearing that day to testify were Robert Atkins—author of Dr. Atkins’ Diet Revolution, a book that had already sold almost one million copies in the six months since its publication—and three authorities in nutrition and health, who would testify that Atkins’s severely carbohydrate-restricted diet was neither revolutionary, effective, nor safe. The tenor of the hearing was inquisitorial, and a pithy condemnation of Atkins and his diet by the Harvard nutritionist Fred Stare was read into the record by Senator Charles Percy of Illinois (Stare did not attend). “The Atkins diet is nonsense,” Stare declared. “Any book that recommends unlimited amounts of meat, butter and eggs, as this does, in my opinion is dangerous. The author who makes the suggestion is guilty of malpractice.”

A few weeks later, McGovern’s committee hosted hearings on “Sugar in the Diet, Diabetes, and Heart Disease.” Testimony came from an international panel of authorities, including Peter Cleave, Aharon Cohen of Hadassah University in Jerusalem, George Campbell of the Durban Diabetes Study Program in South Africa, Peter Bennett of the NIH, and Walter Mertz of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. These investigators discussed the potential dangers of refined carbohydrates in the diet, and John Yudkin testified to the particular dangers of sugar. McGovern and his fellow congressmen found the testimony compelling, although difficult to reconcile with the growing acceptance, their own included, of the notion that it was fatty foods that caused heart disease, and carbohydrates that would prevent it.

Those on the committee saw no connection between the two sets of hearings. They believed Atkins was peddling dietary nonsense, whereas Cleave, Campbell, and the others were promoting reasonable science, albeit a minority viewpoint. The congressmen did not comprehend that both sets of hearings were about the role of refined and easily digestible carbohydrates and the damage they might cause. “We weren’t thinking of those two things,” said the committee staff director, Kenneth Schlossberg, looking back from a perspective of three decades, “which was not very bright.”

Three years later, in July 1976, McGovern’s committee returned to the subject of diet and disease in the hearings that would lead, a half year later still, to the publication of Dietary Goals for the United States. The first witness was Assistant Secretary of Health Theodore Cooper, who repeatedly emphasized the need for further research to establish reliable knowledge about the diet-disease connection. McGovern and his fellow congressmen, however, wanted to tell the American public something more definitive, so McGovern asked Cooper if he could, at least, agree with the proposition that “overconsumption may be as serious a problem of nutrition as under-consumption.”

“Particularly overconsumption of the wrong things,” Cooper replied. “Very often in the poor we see people who are plump who might be called obese, and people would then conclude that they do not have a deficiency because they look rotund, healthy in one sense of the word. But it is true that the consumption of high carbohydrate sources with the induction of obesity constitutes a very serious public health problem in the underprivileged and economically disadvantaged. I would agree with that.”

This response seems clear enough: the overconsumption of “high carbohydrate sources”—a phrase used to describe carbohydrate-dense starches and refined carbohydrates rather than leafy green vegetables and fruits—was associated with obesity in the poor, and perhaps even the cause. McGovern then asked Cooper to provide a “general rule of thumb” about eating habits that would help prevent disease and lengthen our lives, and Cooper reluctantly agreed to do so.

“What kinds of foods in general should we be consuming less of and what should we be eating more of?” McGovern asked.

“I think what we need to consider doing is to reduce our total fat intake,” Cooper replied. “Fat adds a caloric substance—almost twice as much—nine calories per gram—as compared to sugar. I think in order to have an effective reduction in weight and realignment of our composition we have to focus on reducing fat intake.”