The article is a bit hyperbolic. Nutrition is complex and hard-to-study, the research is under various distorting pressures from several industries, and it's b

The article is a bit hyperbolic. Nutrition is complex and hard-to-study, the research is under various distorting pressures from several industries, and it's been gotten disastrously wrong in the past, but such is science- science is hard. Just because we've gotten it wrong before doesn't invalidate more recent results, and just because there are important uncertainties in our current knowledge doesn't mean we can't quantify and manage that uncertainty. The real issue is, and the author's real point (whether he knows it or not), is that non-scientists don't, and currently mostly can't, know anything about nutrition. To get a decent, self-respecting nutritional fact, you need to trace it back to the studies (to make sure it's not corporate BS,) make sure these studies are relatively recent (so that they're not deformed by the various assumptions and flawed conceptual frameworks that dominated the field a couple decades ago,) and ensure that the researchers and statistics at work are reasonably trustworthy (to make sure it's not some of the bad research that is still being done[1].) This is not something that most people can do, and that's simply to access the limited and uncertain facts we currently have. To the typical highschool graduate trying to make dinner, it's worse than useless. ([1] Which is, again, not unique to nutritional science. Bad papers are published in every field.) More than a lack of knowledge, we have a lack of trustworthy authority. If someone wants to know about chemistry or math, trustworthy sources are easy to find, and their pronouncements can be taken on faith if the student doesn't want to get bogged down in the details. If someone wants to know next week's weather, the available answers will be uncertain and untrustworthy, but everyone at least knows the right people to ask, and has some idea of how to deal with "50% chance of rain." In nutrition, no one knows where to ask, and no one knows how to deal with what information that is available (for instance, raise your hand if you know the glycemic index of your most recent meal.) The answer to this can't be the scientific method; it's a social process. Incidentally, the present nutritional wisdom is probably best summed up by Michael Pollan's "eat food; not too much; mostly plants." From that you'll be fine. (If you want to be really fancy, know the calories-per-serving of the ~10 most common foods you eat; by then you'll be eating healthier than about 95% of Americans, most likely. Know the glycemic index and you're past 99%.)