Posted on Sun, Dec. 07, 2003
In Atkins era, sandwich is no hero
Low-carb diets are catching on, to dismay of bread- and pasta-makers.
By Alfred Lubrano, Inquirer Staff Writer
link to article
At the edge of the eating revolution, ballerina Jamie Potts downed a breadless cheesesteak on a bed of lettuce at Campo's Deli in Old City.
It was an outrageous act in a town where the sandwich is sacred. "I don't need the bread," Potts, 23, said during lunch last week, echoing the stunning idea that is spreading fire-fast throughout a fat, fat nation.
Avoiding bread, pasta and potatoes at what food experts say is an astonishing rate, many Americans are evangelically fixated on the low-carbohydrate dining espoused by diets such as Atkins and South Beach. Depending on the estimate, between nine million and 35 million people are following all or some of the tenets of a high-protein, low-carb eating regimen.
Beef - once vilified as slow, fatty death - has been catapulted to "health-halo" status. At the same time, many people now banish from the American larder longtime tabletop friends such as Betty Crocker and the earnest Quaker Oats oatmeal guy.
Going against the grain, people are buying more meat, eggs, bacon, pork rinds and beef jerky, and less bread, pasta, french fries, hot cereal and cookies. Stores are stuffed with low-carbohydrate products that manufacturers seductively claim are the millennium's new health foods. And restaurants from Dairy Queen and Blimpie to Don Pablo's and T.G.I. Friday's have low-carb foods on their minds and menus.
All of this startling hatred of once-revered foods has left starch purveyors sputtering.
"Carb-bashing is a vigilante approach to nutrition," complained Carolyn O'Neil, a dietitian and a spokeswoman for the National Bread Leadership Council. "Bread is the wrong suspect. It's been the staff of life since the beginning of time.
"How did the Mother Teresa of foods suddenly become Rodney Dangerfield?"
Wounded by the loss of customers and growing public scorn, the bread industry held a crisis council last month in Providence, R.I., and the pasta-makers will have a similar summit in Rome in February.
This rapid change in how we regard food can be traced, in part, to medical studies this year and a New York Times article last year that validated aspects of the decades-old Atkins approach.
Ultimately, experts say, low-carb dieting appeals to the paradoxical American desire to lose weight by continuing to eat beloved foods such as steak.
"Beef demand here has doubled, and whenever I'm on a low-carb diet, I feel great," said Sonny D'Angelo, co-owner of D'Angelo Bros. butcher shop at the Italian Market. "Put a pork chop and a cannoli in front of me, and I'll pick the pork chop every time."
•
It wasn't too long ago that we reviled saturated fat - and carb-rich foods such as bagels and linguine were our pals.
For decades, Americans have compiled a growing list of foods they consider evil. In the mid-1970s, a U.S. Senate select committee on nutrition issued dietary guidelines warning of the red menace that was beef.
"That became the cornerstone of dietary and school-lunch policy," said Mark Thomas, a marketing executive with the National Cattlemen's Beef Association. "For years afterward, you had decreased demand and consumption."
Though beef never fully recovered, it has been growing in popularity, at least partly because of low-carb eating, experts say. Last year, Americans on average ate 2 more pounds of beef than they did in 2001, the association said. By another association measure, consumer demand for beef has risen 10 percent since 1998.
After beef took a hit, other foods drew flak. In 1984, the top concern was sugar, according to Harry Balzer of NPD Group Inc., a New York market-research firm.
Over time, the list of America's Most Unwanted grew to include caffeine, salt, cholesterol and saturated fat.
The Atkins diet first bashed carbs in 1972, but it was considered too controversial and did not catch on.
Then, in July 2002, a New York Times Sunday magazine article cited growing medical evidence suggesting that Atkins was not too far off base.
In May of this year, the New England Journal of Medicine reported that in the first six months, Atkins dieters lost twice as much weight as people on high-carb, low-fat diets. After a year there was no difference in weight loss - but the Atkins dieters showed drops in triglycerides, which have been linked to heart disease.
The journal article also said that obese people were successful on Atkins. People tend to lose weight faster on protein diets than on other diets, though much of the loss is water weight, doctors say.
In October, the Harvard School of Public Health reported that people on a low-carb diet lost more weight over three months than low-fat dieters - even though low-carb dieters ate 300 more calories per day.
Much of nutrition science is inexact and rife with controversy. Doctors continue to say that diets rarely work long-term.
Still, there is a growing belief among some health experts that eating too many carbohydrates - particularly the highly processed, simple carbs found in cookies, cake, candy, white bread, some pastas, white rice and potatoes - raises blood sugar and insulin levels, which can lead to diabetes and other complications.
What's more, unlike protein, which is digested slowly, simple carbohydrates are absorbed quickly, making a person feel hungry sooner after eating.
"Low-carb [eating] caught the buzz within the last year," said Balzer, whose NPD Group issues diaries to 5,000 people for two-week periods and asks them to record everything they eat. "We are running to this trend. It's a major force."
Balzer said the low-carb movement might be a phase, but "we just don't know how short-term. So if you're a food manufacturer with carbs in your food, you will have to address this."
Nobody seems more worried than bread-makers. A survey commissioned by the bread council found that 40 percent of consumers say they are eating less bread this year than last. (Balzer disagrees, saying the true figure is closer to 2 percent.)
Though dollar sales are up, the number of loaves of sliced bread sold is down nearly 1 percent from last year, with Wonder bread down almost 4 percent, according to Information Resources Inc., a market-research firm in Chicago.
Paul Abenante, president of the American Bakers Association, said sales of bread, cakes and cookies were down 10 percent. And Betsy Faga, who runs the North American Millers' Association, said Americans eat 10 fewer pounds of flour per person today than in 1997 (137 pounds vs. 147).
Yet so-called artisan or gourmet bakeries say they are holding their own. Wendy Born, co-owner of the Metropolitan Bakery, based in Philadelphia, said multigrain and cracked-wheat breads - considered more healthy than white bread - were selling at "dramatically higher rates."
Overall, though, "the public-relations onslaught against bread is hard to stop, frankly," Abenante said. "Atkins has this momentum going. Who are they getting their nutritional information from, Dr. Phil? It's ridiculous to attack bread, really."
The same goes for pasta, said Luke Marano, chairman of the Philadelphia Macaroni Co., whose noodles go in Campbell's soup and Hamburger Helper.
"It's wrong to say pasta makes you fat," he said. "Roman women are beautiful, and eat 60 pounds of pasta per person in a year. We eat 15. They walk and eat grains. We eat burgers and chips and never exercise."
Marano said his sales are up 2.5 percent over last year. Nationwide, though, the amount of pasta sold is down by 2.3 percent, Information Resources says.
"There's no panic," Marano said, "but there is a sense of urgency in our business."
•
The battle with weight is ceaseless.
"Watching Americans eat is frightening," said Margot Winer, an anthropologist in California. "We eat too much and take too much gratification through food."
Seeing carbs fingered as the latest culprit was all that food manufacturers needed, said Jenny McTaggart, associate editor of Progressive Grocer, a publication about the food industry.
"You're seeing an influx of high-protein bars, low-carb breads, pastas and snacks," she said. Industry analysts say they knew manufacturers were serious about the trend when Russell Stover recently released a line of low-carb candy.
H.J. Heinz Co. announced this year the first low-carb ketchup (tomatoes and corn syrup have carbs). In Philadelphia, Manayunk Brewery & Restaurant introduced Gutless Lager, which has nearly 10 fewer grams of carbohydrates per glass than its premium lager. Even Kentucky Fried Chicken described its product as low-carb, inspiring Jack Neff, contributing editor of Advertising Age, to say, "I assume people are taking off the breading."
Some unlikely products already low in carbs are also getting a boost. Sales of pork rinds - said to be a favorite of models looking for a low-carb snack - are up 30 percent over last year, Information Resources said.
"I love watching the low-carb product explosion," O'Neil, from the bread council, said sarcastically. "You can put a label on a stick of butter and call it low-carb."
Indeed, unlike low-fat and low-calorie, there are no government guidelines defining the term low-carbohydrate. The Grocery Manufacturers of America Inc. has petitioned the Food and Drug Administration to come up with a working definition, which food analysts say may happen early next year.
Though it is too soon to measure the success of the low-carb lines, Atkins product sales have increased more than 200 percent over last year.
"It started out as a cult diet," said Stuart Trager, chairman of the Atkins Physician Council, "but controlling carbs benefits everyone's health."
In the end, it doesn't matter whether your calories come from carbohydrates, protein or fat, said Althea Zanecosky, a dietitian at the American Dietetic Association. "If you don't control your portion size, and if you don't burn off what you eat, you will get fat. It still boils down to calories in, calories out."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Contact staff writer Alfred Lubrano at 215-854-4969 or alubrano~phillynews.com.
"In Atkins era, sandwich is no hero"
Linear Mode
