Funny you should say that Groggy, this is what I wrote him/her.

I was reading your article and had to wonder, what diet are you talking about. It certainly bears little resemblance to the Atkins diet, despite the name. Maybe it's a new spin-off like the South Beach diet. Oh wait, I know it's the new Media Low-Carb diet.

Let me sum it up. All the steak, cream, butter and fat you can stuff down your gullet, just skip ... well everything else.

I'm kidding....well maybe not. I hope you realize that the diet bandied about by the media ever since it became "news" bears little resemblance to the real thing. It's tragic in many ways because it's been repeated so often, many people (including the media, who really should know better) thinks that's what Atkins is. There is an unfortunate tendency for people to simply go forward with they THINK Atkins is, instead of actually reading the book and finding out what's it really is. You end up with people like Varun Uttamchandani, who believes things like "Atkins tells you to avoid things like fruits, so my nutrients were very limited," and "I quit because I was revolted by how much meat I had to eat,".

First of all, you don't "have" to eat meat on Atkins in anything else than normal quantities. No one says you need to start eating whole chickens, or 16 ounces steaks. Atkins says that you should eat till you are satisfied, not stuffed. Not sure about you, but eating a whole chicken would make me more than stuffed. Most people who follow the REAL Atkins diet as opposed to the pretend pseudo-Atkins Media diet, declare that they don't eat in any greater quantity than they used to, but now eat a much greater variety and quantity of......will you guess it .... vegetables. Yes the poor humble vegetable that is demonized on the pseudo-Atkins Media diet is actually, not only permitted but encouraged. Yes, maybe the quantities are limited at the strictest phase of the diet, but even those quantities are more than most people on "normal" diets eat. As you progress you start eating more vegetables, reintroduce fruits and eventually complex carbohydrates. The only thing that are never re-introduced are simple carbs such as sugar, white flour, white rice, white pasta. Do you seriously think those are the essential staples of a good diet ?

But too many people never get to that stage because they have been misled in believing Atkins is a diet of all meat, and very little of anything else. A complete fabrication that turns people away from a diet that would ultimately lead them to eating more vegetables they ever ate before and to cutting out all the junk food that made them fat in the first place.

I think you do a great disservice to people by perpetuating the myths about Atkins. Forget the misconceptions and hearsay and go to the source. Find out for yourself.