That's a false dichotomy. It is possible to look to ancient practices with an eye towards using those as foundations for research. We didn't do that; instead, we let threw out all of that knowledge, the good and the bad, and we have 100 million sick people in the US and over a billion around the world.

I'm a firm believer that we can find good answers in science, but we are doing a piss-poor job and have been for 50 years. In fact, I'd go so far to see we've done very little nutritional science over the last 50 years; instead, we've done nutritional marketing in white coats. If people are rejecting what nutritional researchers are saying, they have only themselves to blame.

Things have gotten a little better in the last decade, but large organizations like the AHA, ADA, AND, and, of course, the US government, still seem to be stuck following the marketing literature of companies like Conagra and Monsanto rather than the science.