Some time ago, I needed an attorney, but couldn't afford one, to fight the child welfare system, so I got a court-appointed one. The county that hired the attorney hires from a small pool of struggling private practice lawyers that get their primary means of support from serving as court-appointed lawyers. I found out after about 2 months of bad counsel ("forgetting" to tell me of my rights to examine the evidence through the discovery process, for one example) that it is a very bad idea to expect good and fair representation from a lawyer who is employed by the same government that brought the charges in the first place. I then went several thousand dollars in debt and hired my own lawyer; two things happened almost simultaneously: somehow the county clerk's office door was found to have been unlocked for an undetermined amount of time and the evidence in my case couldn't be found (!), and all charges were dropped for "lack of evidence".

What has this to do with the subject at hand? Dieticians have a vested interest in staying employed as dieticians. Of all the plans mentioned, Atkins is the least profitable (and most threatening) from a dietician's point of view--even Slim-Fast employs dieticians on a regular basis as consultants. Atkins can be followed by anyone who can read.