Posted on 08/08/2004 9:08:49 PM PDT by nuconvert
Low-Carb Craze Fails to Cross Atlantic
By FRANCES D'EMILIO/Associated Press
Aug. 8, 2004
ROME (AP) -- Continental low-carb? No thanks. We'll have slabs of black bread for breakfast, rigatoni with broccoli and hot pepper sauce for lunch and a plate of shrimp paella for supper.
While recipe books for diets like Atkins and South Beach are gospel for many in the United States, the American craze for low-carb versions of brownies, breads and pasta hasn't crossed the Atlantic to the Continent.
Only Britain, where junk-food habits and ample figures often mirror those of their American cousins, is turning into an island of low-carb fans.
"The Atkins Diet craze that has gripped America will not result in Germans eating more sausage and less potatoes," said Dr. Volker Pudel, director of nutrition psychology and research at the University of Goettingen in Germany.
"Just think about German breakfast. You cannot just have eggs without the bread, and you cannot eat butter without spreading it on bread. It just won't work in Germany, this diet," said Pudel in a telephone interview.
One reason for Europe's snub of low-carb diets like Atkins and South Beach might be need - or lack of it.
Europeans like to walk, even when they have no place to go.
An entire European family could make a picnic of canapes from the staggering high pile of cold cuts in just one New York deli sandwich. Italians return from abroad stunned by cherished U.S. dining habits like all-you-can eat restaurants and doggy bags for all you can't eat.
"To give up a plate of pasta for a diet is, in my view, blasphemy," said Andrea Pargallo, a bartender in Napoleone bar on Piazza Venezia, as he served customers their morning cappuccino and cornetto (brioche).
"The Mediterranean diet is the best in the world. Indeed, we don't have all so many obesity problems like our friends across the ocean," said Pargallo, 31.
He was referring to Italy's staple diet, praised by nutritionists and built heavily around grains like rice and pasta and fruit and vegetables.
In France, where natives walk dogs with one hand and clutch a white-flour baguette in the other, pharmacist Niama Wallah said she was unfamiliar with the cutting-carbs approach to weight loss.
"But with the level of obesity that you have in America, it doesn't surprise me that people are going to such lengths to diet," said Wallah, who runs a pharmacy off the Champs-Elysees in Paris.
With Europeans so loyal to their linguine and so faithful to their pommes frites, European food manufacturers and supermarket chains haven't been plunging into low-carb product lines.
"We don't have low-carbohydrate products," said Omer Pignatti, a spokesman for Conad, a chain of supermarkets in Italy. "There isn't any on the Italian market and we don't foresee any such initiatives."
Surveys seem to bear out his assessment.
"We've seen low-carb to be an entirely U.S. phenomenon," said Lynn Dornblaser, director of consulting services for London-based Mintel International Group, Ltd.
Dornblaser was among those presenting a country-by-country survey of low-carb products at a food industry meeting in Las Vegas, Nev., earlier this month.
In the United States, the number of new low-carb products ballooned from two in 1999 to 1,329 so far this year, the survey found.
Continental Europe saw few such products being introduced until this year, when a U.S.-based company which sells low-carb bagels, buns, cheesecakes and other products, began offering its fare via the Internet to Europe.
In Britain, new low-carb products sharply rose from five last year to 159 in 2004. Among the items are "no-bread" sandwiches sold by a popular sandwich chain, Pret a Manger.
"We did this very much in response to basically the low-carb fever that was sort of coming over here," Nellie Nichols, Pret a Manger's head of food, said of the product, which is sold in square boxes to resemble sandwiches. "They are going down very, very well."
"Carbs have become the devil's work, haven't they?" said Matt Hind, 25, a trainee lawyer buying his lunch in central London. "I think people are always looking for quick fixes when it comes to weight."
With obesity a matter for mounting concern in Britain, the tabloids there sprinkle their pages with names of celebrities going low-carb, including, reportedly, singer Robbie Williams, former Spice Girl Geri Halliwell, actress Minnie Driver and food writer/celebrity chef Nigella Lawson.
Asked why low-carbs haven't caught on in most of Europe, Dornblaser, who works out of Mintel's Chicago office, said Europeans "have got a better understanding of portion control," as well as balance and variety in diet.
"In the U.S., rightly or wrongly, we like to have a magic pill."
Oh that's SO yummy!
Is it true low carb diets can cause you to lose your balance on ice?
I don't know. But ask for your drinks straight up.
They don't need low carb in Europe. It appeals to fat Americans who don't want to exercise, like diet pills and other such nonsense.
I have a crazy fad diet I call "eating less and exercising more." Everyone knows that is the best way to lose weight, but they would rather find a "secret formula" for success. In the '90s, the secret was low-fat. Today it's low-carb. If I were a greedy young nutritionist, I would start writing a book on a low-protein diet. It will probably sell like hotcakes (no pun intended) in the year 2010.
"To give up a plate of pasta for a diet is, in my view, blasphemy," said Andrea Pargallo, a bartender in Napoleone bar on Piazza Venezia, as he served customers their morning cappuccino and cornetto (brioche). "
I thought so too, until I weighed myself this morning: 58 pounds down since last January...
Oh, and Dreamfields pasta is low carb and yummy!
"Man, the marketers are sucking money out of people's pockets right and left on this one."
I'll say. Everywhere you look........
I am on the "Normal Diet" right now.
Yup!
Quite humerous...lol. Unfortunately, for them, Atkins/low carb does work. It works well. It works quickly. And it works in a healthy way for the body. And, OF COURSE, excercise or increased physical activity is an important part of its success.
I'm down 68 lbs since 08 Jan 04. I have bought no 'Low carb' branded products, but where I now live they are not available. Gee...so much for being a 'market influenced feeble head'...lol. Laughing all the way to my scales!
Clemenza lost 30 pounds over four months doing the Jesus diet: Lots of walking, Lots of talking, eat sparingly, but when you do eat FEAST LIKE THERE'S NO TOMORROW!
hehehehehe soaking up that great weather up there?
How do you "eat sparingly" and "feast like there's no tomorrow" at the same time?
Easy, eat rarely but splurge on rare occassions a la the Last Supper
I think all this low carb stuff is just crazy. I saw a $5 pack of low carb pasta that wasn't even a pound and can't imagine who is paying that much!
I live on pasta, potatoes, bread and rice and weigh a whopping 95 pounds! I can't imagine life without any of that.
ping
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