In late November of this year Gary Taubes gave a number of talks to members of various departments at the University of California at Berkeley. One of these talks – The Quality of Calories: What Makes Us Fat and Why Nobody Seems to Care – was recorded and can be viewed by clicking here. You need Real Player to watch the video. If you don’t have it, simply Google real player or real player mac and you will find a free download of the program.

Gary’s talk expands on one of the theses in his book Good Calories, Bad Calories: the idea that obesity isn’t caused by gluttony and sloth, but by excess carbohydrate intake instead. If you haven’t read the book or if you have and you want the weight-loss section explained in greater depth, this video is for you. He’s a little more open than he was in the book about naming names and pointing the finger at people who for whatever reason can’t see the forest for the trees. The video is long – almost two hours – but well, well worth watching.

I’m going to be seeing Gary in about a week. We’ll have one of our many hour visits at a coffee house in downtown Manhattan. If anyone has a question for Gary, put in in a comment, and I’ll ask him as many as I can while I’m overdosing on caffeine.

So take a break from your Christmas shopping this weekend, kick back and watch this video. You’ll be glad you did.

Hat tip to blog reader Art D for giving me the heads up on this one.