What a load of tripe - actually rubbish as I like tripe. Carbs bring flavour, is he serious, the protein is always the star of the dish and can often be eaten without any seasoning and alone; who would eat just rice or pasta.
"People in every society on Earth bulk out their meals with bread, potatoes, rice, pasta, noodles or whatever source of cheap carbohydrate is available to fill their stomachs and give them energy"
This is only the case in modern times. It would be easy to roll out the usual suspects who did not eat like this and to recant the trading systems which introduced fattening carbs around the globe. Breads in European societies pre-monsanto and mass production were much healthier, often taking a significant part of the day to make. Another factor is that societies who had healthier bread as a staple were generally refined sugarless as well as not eating every 3 to 4 hours.
As for being so restrictive I would happily compare my typical week with the authors sea of beige, my main meal today had 8 elements (excluding seasonings), my deserts included chocolate, 6 types of roasted nuts with cajun seasoning and 2 cracker biscuits with peanut butter.
Another one of those that says a calorie is a calorie, 250 cals of potatoes behaves in a very different way to 250 calories of steak.
I only have to look at the gi load gi index, the insulin response, the readings on blood glucose meters, what carbs turn into, what makes triglycerides and what macro is generally removed to reverse diabetes and reduce weight and other conditions = carbs.