*Gary Taubes describes the developing carbohydrate hypothesis at great length in Good Calories, Bad Calories. According to the hypothesis, most of the damage to our health that has been wrongly attributed to fats for the past half century—heart disease, obesity, cancer, diabetes, and so on—can rightly be blamed on refined carbohydrates. But the healthy skepticism Taubes brought to the lipid hypothesis is nowhere in evidence when he writes about the (also unproven) carbohydrate hypothesis. Even if refined carbohydrates do represent a more serious threat to health than dietary fat, to dwell on any one nutrient to the exclusion of all others is to commit the same reductionist error that the lipophobes did. Indeed, Taubes is so single-minded in his demonization of the carbohydrate that he overlooks several other possible explanations for the deleterious effects of the Western diet, including deficiencies of omega-3s and micronutrients from plants. He also downplays the risks (to health as well as eating pleasure) of the high-protein Atkins diet that the carbohydrate hypothesis implies is a sound way to eat. As its title suggests, Good Calories, Bad Calories, valuable as it is, does not escape the confines of nutritionism.

In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto
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