I challenge the author to load himself on steak and saturated fats and no carbs and come race me 100 miles on a road bike.
I burn in excess of 4000 Calories on a 80 mile bike ride. That's a kilogram of rice on a single ride. And honestly I find it incredibly hard to eat enough just to satisfy the energy requirements of racing. Not eating carbs and attempting an endurance race event is just suicidal and guaranteed way to abandon and not finish at all let alone place well.
Eating large proportion of your energy from meat is also a good way to kill racing performance, let alone if all your energy is from meat.
But even for sedentary lifestyle, no complex carbs at all is sure way to make yourself feel completely miserable. On the other hand living on saturated fat and protein is a sure way to give yourself a coronary disease.
Compared to the average person, you're a bit of an outlier. If you're not racing 100 miles, why would you consume those carbs?
If you've read Taubes' writing, he doesn't say to eliminate all carbs. He does, however, demonize "white" carbs that have become a staple of the modern western diet.
Even Tim Ferriss' "slow-carb diet" features legumes heavily, but eliminates sweets, bread, and other high-glycemic calorie sources.
I was deliberately flippant in my answer. Of course I would need to challenge one of my racing buddies who are on the same level as I am. But no need for that, I have tried some low carb diets (described in Ferriss' four hour body book) in the off season to try to lower my weight, and even though they work short term (I can do it for a couple of weeks), the performance on the bike started to suffer immensely. I just can't keep up my watts. But that is to be expected.
I will agree that the modern western diet is a horrible thing. I have grown up eating typical Mediterranean diet with mostly home grown organic ingredients, and I find it incredibly hard to continue to eat like that living in Canada.
I think the biggest problem in North America at least is economical. The fact that certain produce like corn are subsidized by the government to the point that they are so cheap they make it into everything where you would never expect. This means you have to exclude certain foods altogether unless you have the time to make them yourself every time you want to eat them, which is rather impractical.
Because that's exactly what people do every day and what they should always be prepared for. I keep my racing bike and a bag of rice right next to the emergency kit.
Some people are into thousands of miles on a bike, or marathons, great for you, but most aren't. And, beyond enjoyment, there's no reason to be into that, there are better, cheaper and less time-consuming ways to maintain your physical fitness[1].
Instead of 100 miles on a bike, you could do 20 pull-ups, 50 push-ups, some leg rises, followed by an inferno omelete[2], save two hours to do something else, and still likely get better results if you're so worried about that coronary disease.
I'm not too worried about coronary disease, but I am concerned about my brain, my mental well being, Alzheimer's, cognitive ability, depression etc, esp. considering everyone on this site is at a higher risk for all of these due mostly to the stress of the profession and sedentary lifestyle.
Unfortunately, leg rises, push ups, pull ups etc (strength and resistance training in general) do nothing for your brain. On the other hand brain thrives on aerobic activity, esp. higher end of the spectrum near the aerobic threshold. And this is also great for your mood and general well being.
It also takes a decade to develop your aerobic engine (well there are really 3 - 4 metabolic systems available to you when you do aerobic exercise, but some are so short in duration that are negligible and the others respond to training very well). Developing power at threshold (i.e. put out as much power as you can at a level just at the edge between aerobic and anaerobic) is the slowest to develop.
For more on connection between brain health and aerobic exercise see Dr. Medina's Google talk on his "Brain Rules". It's quite enlightening in general
If you're used to burning carbs sure, since you'll have high insulin levels. It takes time to build up to the point where you're able to burn fat easily.
Peak aerobic performance requires carbohydrates. But most people expend less than 100 calories a day on peak aerobic performance, not 5000.
Carbohydrate-related hormones feel pleasant. Withdrawal is unpleasant. This is a good motivation for a hunter-gatherer, but not so much for someone with an unlimited supply of carbohydrates.
I burn in excess of 4000 Calories on a 80 mile bike ride. That's a kilogram of rice on a single ride. And honestly I find it incredibly hard to eat enough just to satisfy the energy requirements of racing. Not eating carbs and attempting an endurance race event is just suicidal and guaranteed way to abandon and not finish at all let alone place well.
Eating large proportion of your energy from meat is also a good way to kill racing performance, let alone if all your energy is from meat.
But even for sedentary lifestyle, no complex carbs at all is sure way to make yourself feel completely miserable. On the other hand living on saturated fat and protein is a sure way to give yourself a coronary disease.