October 16, 2003

Eat meat, lose weight - everybody's doing it

By Susan Wood, Tribune staff writer

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At first glance, the Atkins diet may look like the best thing since sliced bread.

Just ask George Herrick. The latest diet craze had represented the bread and butter of the weight loss for the head clerk at the Safeway at Round Hill. He even gave it the strictest scrutiny by fooling his mother.

Herrick recently sat down 100 pounds lighter and wearing dark glasses at the end of his mother's Crescent City bar.

"She served me a Coke and didn't recognize me," he said.

His own customers ask if he's sick. The 172-pound South Shore man went on the Atkins diet more than five months ago when he found it difficult to play with his 2-year-old granddaughter.

"I wanted to watch her grow up," said Herrick, 49.

From thereafter, Herrick has lived on the low carbohydrate, high protein diet by cutting out all bread and beefing up on meat - especially beef. He also walks every day.

He's noticed others coming through his grocery counter doing about the same thing. Safeway has added a type of beef to its meat counter to tempt those taste buds. It's called Rancher's Reserve from Kansas City.

"Everybody's jumping on the bandwagon," he said.

Vera Janese followed Herrick's lead when she witnessed her co-worker's progress. She lost 90 pounds in eight months by getting on the diet and riding a stationary bike.

"I was tired of my weight," said Janese, who's now 157 pounds.

The loss was so extreme the Tahoe Valley Elementary School secretary didn't recognize Janese when she picked up her son, Anthony.

For the heightened level of interest in the diet, Safeway and Albertsons have set up an Atkins diet display featuring a special baking mix and snack bars.

Neither supermarket could quantify the impact of the diet on meat sales nor high-carb foods such as pasta and breads. Safeway opted not to release any sales figures.

"Even if we've had a significant increase in meat sales from the Atkins diet, we sell so much meat, it would be too hard to detect," Albertsons Manager Dennis Schedes said.

Mark Cohen, who owns Overland Meats, has noticed a 30 percent rise in meat sales over the last four months since the diet craze caught on. He hasn't noticed any change in pasta and bread sales. But the meat is driving the customers.

"I've had people come in here who have never come in before," he said.

Many of the customers talk about being on the diet.

"It's become a meeting place," he chuckled.

The wife of one of his workers lost 31 pounds in a year.

Rachel Brunsman, who works for Cork & More catering, said it's helped to be in the food business. This is important because diets bore some people and they lose interest.

"People who are fanatical get burned out. It helps to take a cut of meat and do it 15,000 different ways," she said, adding that moderation is the key.

Nutritionists say this is a necessity to any diet plan. Without diversity in the diet, there are health risks.

Laura Dick, Barton Memorial Hospital director of nutrition services, said she's concerned those on the diet fail to get the wide range of fruits and vegetables required for any balanced meal plan. She went so far as to say the Atkins diet may be unsafe for that reason.

"The bulk of the evidence in research suggests that a diet based on a high concentration of fruits and vegetables and grains lowers the risk of heart disease," Dick said.

She commends those who have lost weight on the diet, but warned people to refrain from having tunnel vision about it.

"I think people like this diet because they say they're not hungry like they've been with other diets," Dick said. "They're not looking at the holistic approach. We have to look beyond losing weight."


The popularity of the Atkins diet was borne out of the release of Dr. Robert Atkins' book "New Diet Revolution."

The diet begins with guidelines set for no more than 20 grams of carbs a day. The amount equates to two to three cups of salad vegetables. But the focus of the diet revolves around protein and fats that can be found in meat, nuts, cheese, olives and sour cream.

The combination revs up metabolism and burns fat as an energy source. Now the contention is supported by something other than Atkins' followers.

A study out of the Harvard School of Public Health revealed that people eating an extra 300 calories a day on a low-carb regimen lost just as much weight during a 12-week period as those on a standard low-fat diet.

The results point to a long-standing notion to nutritionists - a calorie is a calorie is a calorie, whether it comes from bacon or mashed potatoes.