[QUOTE=westerner]Ok, I'll give you that. But it seems to me that the burden of proof is on Dr Atkins, given that he appears to recommend large amounts of saturated fat, which has been pretty conclusively linked to heart disease.QUOTE]

that's not actually true, on several levels: 1) Atkins doesn't recommend large amounts of saturated fat, they just dont think there's any reason to avoid it, because 2) studies indicting saturated fat were all done in a high carb-high fat context, not a low carb, high fat context, and do not apply to the low carb diet, and 3) those studies, if you look at them closely, do not actually make a convincing case that saturated fat is bad for you at all. I dont have a set of links handy but do a google on Cholestoral Skeptics and you'll see what I mean...