At this point, the "science" of nutrition is so muddled and tainted by commercial interests as to be essentially without any credibility whatsoever. Pop science articles like the the OP NYT.com link only add to the mess – using absurd metaphors like muscle fatigue for willpower, and talking about self-control as an exhaustible "resource" based on some no-doubt extremely qualitative and subjective study.

Health information in western cultures is very low signal to noise.