But all great stories need a villain, and dietary fat was cast into that role. Dietary fat was thought to increase the amount of cholesterol, a fatty substance that is thought to contribute to heart disease, in the blood. Soon, physicians began to advocate lower-fat diets. With great enthusiasm and shaky science, the demonization of dietary fat began in earnest. There was a problem, though we didn’t see it at the time. The three macronutrients are fat, protein and carbohydrates: lowering dietary fat meant replacing it with either protein or carbohydrates. Since many high-protein foods like
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