In America today, nearly 10% of the population has diabetes; more than two-thirds of us are overweight or obese; and one out of 10 kids are thought to have nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. The journalist Gary Taubes blames all of these afflictions on one culprit: sugar. In a new book, Taubes argues that sugar is the “principal cause of the chronic diseases most likely to kill us…in the 21st century.” Taubes joins us to make the case against sugar and why we’d be healthier without it.

Gary Taubes is co-founder of the Nutrition Science Initiative, a non-profit research organization. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, The Atlantic, and Esquire. He's the author of the books Why We Get Fat and Good Calories, Bad Calories. His new book is called The Case Against Sugar [Independent bookstores|Amazon].