Beef Vs. Bagels: Food Companies Take on Dr. Atkins

Reuters Science via Yahoo ^ | 3-16-03 | Carey Gillam

[Pharmboy]

OVERLAND PARK, Kan. (Reuters) - It has been months since Tina Moore last bit into a bagel or a slice of toast.

"Protein is good. Carbs are bad," says 41-year-old Moore, who altered her diet five years ago in a bid to lose weight.

Moore, the owner of a hair salon, is one of the estimated 15 million-plus Americans seen as devoted followers of dieting guru, Dr. Robert Atkins, who recommends eating protein for those who want to rid themselves of unwanted weight and keep the pounds off.

"Carbs and sugar ... they give you a quick high, then you get really low. You get tired and hungry," said Moore, who sees herself as a reformed "carbohydrate addict."

The hamburger patty is good, the hamburger bun bad, according to the teachings of Atkins, who has turned his philosophies into a dieting revolution, starting with his first book, "Dr. Atkins Diet Revolution," in 1972.

Atkins books -- his latest, "Atkins for Life," was published this year -- routinely top best-seller lists. Atkins companies have racked up millions of dollars in sales of specialty low-carb food products and carb-counting scales.

But the popularity of Atkins' eating advice, now appealing to another generation, is fraying the nerves of some food companies who rely on the consumer appetite for carbohydrate-laden foods such as pastas and pizzas, cakes, cookies and cereals, to add heft to their own bottom lines.

They claim Atkins is falsely disparaging food groups that serve as a foundation for American eating. And that by teaching people to severely limit the use of flour-based products, Atkins is eating into sales of some bread and cereal products in the United States.

"Our industry has to do something, and soon. It is starting to become a mainstream belief that carbohydrates are bad," said Judi Adams, director of the Wheat Foods Council, a consortium of industry players that includes ConAgra, General Mills and Kellogg Co.

"This Atkins diet -- or, I call it Fatkins diet -- is going out unchallenged. People are starting to believe it," Adams said.

Part of the consortium's push will be in Washington, where federal health officials are starting talks on revisions to the nation's 11-year-old Food Guide Pyramid.

Wheat Foods will be actively involved in defending the grains, Adams said.

Currently, the pyramid puts bread, cereals, rice and pasta as the foundation for healthy eating, recommending six to 11 servings a day. But some are pushing for changes that would move grains off the foundation, and cut back servings.

SLIM PICKINS

There is limited funding for the anti-Atkins campaign, as most food companies spend their advertising dollars on product specific programs to tout such things as new Berry-Burst Cheerios, recently released by General Mills.

So, with only a slender budget to try to counter the Atkins phenomenon, the Wheat Foods Council is aiming its "educational" campaign" at nutritionists and the medical community.

The strategy is a direct attack on Atkins: Americans who follow the Atkins diet increase their risk of health problems that include cardiovascular disease, high cholesterol, kidney damage and some cancers, the Wheat Foods Council says.

Adding insult to injury, it claims that Atkins followers can also suffer headaches, constipation and bad breath.

The council says obesity is not specifically tied to carbohydrates but is the simple result of lazy overeaters.

"Healthful grain-based foods have become the scapegoat for weight gain, when overeating and underexercising are at issue," said Carol Pratt, a Kellogg nutrition and regulatory affairs expert, and incoming chairwoman for Wheat Foods.

FEWER COOKIES AND CAKES

Consumer eating habits are hard to track, but the latest Consumer Expenditure Survey of the U.S. Department of Labor does indicate a possible shift away from grain-based foods.

According to the government survey, consumer spending in 2001 for ready-to-eat and cooked cereals, pasta, flour, flour mixes and bakery products dropped from the previous year even as consumer spending for meat, poultry, fish and eggs and other similar products increased for the third year in a row.

Moreover, the 0.2 percent decrease in spending came as the consumer price index (news - web sites) for those foods grew 2.9 percent. As well, wheat consumption in the United States dropped 4 percent from 1997 to 2001, according to industry research.

"I'm very much concerned," said Mark Dirkes, spokesman for Interstate Bakeries, the nation's largest wholesale baker and the maker of Wonder Bread. "He (Atkins) has run a very effective campaign. That just can't be good for our industry."

CLEANING OUT THE CABINETS

Among Atkins preachings: the elimination of "white flour-laden junk food" from kitchen cabinets, and research that Atkins says shows carbohydrates work to slow the body's burning of fat and make people feel hungrier faster.

And after decades of rejecting Atkins' theories, some new scientific research studies, including work by Harvard University, have started lending credence to Atkins' ideas.

Colette Heimowitz, director of research at the Atkins Health and Medical Information Services says over-consumption of bread, cereal and baked products is partly to blame for overweight Americans. Products made with white flour, sugars and hydrogenated oils are the worst.

Still, she says, Atkins is not looking to go to war with the food companies, and that even Atkins die-hards allow for an occasional doughnut or cookie.

"We teach people how to respect it and, on rare occasions, have it in moderation," she said. "We know people can't stay away from it forever."

[linn37]

thanks will do and thanks for all the others for links and suggestions for low carb breads that were posted.

[diotima]

No such thing as good locarb pasta. LOL.

But that bread is a godsend. I called the owner and thanked him personally. It lasts a long time as well.

It is worth the money, if you ask me. Sandwiches are so convenient too.

I order merchandise from greenbeanz.com...they have a nice selection.

[Dianna]

Overall, I think balancing the carbs with protien and not using strictly a low carb, high protien diet seems to work (for me anyway.)

I agree with the Atkins philosophy but I have a hard time with the diet. I just don't like meat that much and I ended up hungry. I lost 20 lbs in just a few weeks but I never felt energized like most people say.

I think I'm going to have to go with a bit higher carb diet. I'll look at Body for Life, thanks!

[MadelineZapeezda]

I've lost 21 pounds in 6 weeks and each evening I whip up a CUP of fresh whipping cream,, yes heavy whipping cream, with a packet of splenda and a tsp of unsweetened cocoa powder every night as my treat

[Nov3]

I eat very few carbohydrates but the truth is everybody just about eats to much period let alone refined sugars.

Define very few carbs. 25, 50, 75 grams?

[Nov3]

I gotta call BS on this one.

I lost 28 pounds in 5 weeks. Granted 5 - 10 lbs was water but I lost a solid 20 pounds and kept it off.

[Keith in Iowa]

>>...heavy whipping cream, with a packet of splenda and a tsp of unsweetened cocoa powder every night as my treat

Try this: !/2 cup cottage cheese with 2 tsp. sugar free hot cocoa mix stirred in...if you use 1% milkfat cottage cheese, it's low fat, low carb, and really good.

[jennyp]

Would love to find low carb breads. I use corn tortillas one tortilla has 11 carbs and you can put just about anything in it.

Pining_4_TX mentioned Nature's Own "Reduced Carbohydrate Premium Wheat" bread. I haven't tried it - it's not available up here in Washington, only in the South - but it's getting a lot of buzz at the low-carb newsgroup & in message boards. One slice has 2gm protein/5gm net carbs (total minus fiber.

Myself, being in maintenance, get one of these breads when I get the urge for bread, which is once in a while:

• Oroweat Master's Best Three-Seed, at 4/11 (4gm protein, 11 gm non-fiber carbs) and
• Oroweat Master's Best Winter Wheat at 4/12.

Standard breads, IIRC, have something like 16gm or more carbs per slice, and 2 or 3gm protein.

[wardaddy]

You are correct. The ketosis is why a large man like myself(6'5" 205-212 optimally) can lose a pound a day in the first few weeks of Atkins if strictly adhered to.

I've done it.

Folks can choose to believe I'm lying if they wish.

I'm in the middle of a little ketosis bump right now. I noticed thursady before last while at the doctor for a flu that my weight was up to around 220-222 or so from overindulging in sweets and bready carbs like I love. I went straight to lean meats (in belly swelling amounts) and greens. No rice, no pasta, a little fruit(some grapes..bananas are out) or OJ, fake sugar products and lots of nuts and some dairy. As of yesterday, I had lost 8 pounds in 9 days and other than going through evening sugar "jonesing", not much more effort was required. I'll run it hard like this for another week or so and then modify the spartan nature of it until I get lax in a few months and then purge (in a good way) again.

Low fat does not work for me. I went pure Vegan for 18 months once and craved carbs constantly and lost not shite for weight and felt a lots of ups and downs energy wise depending on meal time.

Yes...one can also lose weight by simply consuming less calories than burned but that is more draconian for me.

I learned about high protein/low carb diet on my own as the hamburger/cottage cheese diet long before i knew what Atkins was.

The only caveat about ketosis is keep fiber pills or the like handy or the dreaded milk of magnesia...yuck....ketosis slams the brakes on your digestive tract in the beginning.

What's turned your typical Wal Mart shopper into a modern day Falstaff lookalike is not all the fat...it's the 44 oz soft drink they buy at the same time with the Nascar logo on the gimme cup to take home. A 44 oz fountain drink is on average 6-800 calories. Three big drinks a day like that is more calories than needed to sustain life calorie-wise and as sugar...it's already prepared for storage unless burned and plays havoc on insulin production.

[wardaddy]

Go to an endicrinologist.

There is no substitute. Graves disease runs in my mom's paternal family. Several aunts, my great grandfather, my mom and my little brother and I have had it.

It can play havoc on unknowing doctors. You need someone who knows thyroid disorders. They can run the gamut from Graves (hyper) to parathyroid to myxedema (hypo) and a lot of other lesser known disorders like Hashimotos etc.

Hypothyroid is potentially more dangerous than hyperthyroid.

It's all part of a circular feedback between thyroid-thymus-hypathalamus(sic) and the big daddy Pituitary. Best to check it out with the best....it's rarely life threatening but nearly always is life quality threatening and takes a while to adjust or cure.

Just my 2 cents...if I forget to take my synthroid for a few days...I get real sluggish....not fun.

[wardaddy]

You can also eat all the cabbage you can stuff in yer belly and starve.

If the flatulence doesn't kill you first..lol

[conservativeatheist]

Your math is wrong. A vigorous exercise program coupled with a calorie deficit of about 1,000 calories a day, and the biochemical advantage of a low carb diet, gets you that kind of weight loss and more.

[wardaddy]

Did you have Graves and residual myxedema from the radioactive iodine treatments or is your myxedema primary?

My endocrinologist here in Nashville much like the one I had in Miami tests usually only for TSH. The pituitary feedback hormone which if too high tells us that my thyroid supplment is low or if the TSH is low then my supplement is too high. I've yet to suffer the latter.

Plus they watch your weight and lipids and insulin etc. I don't think I've had my T3/T4/T7 tested in years. I feel ok...maybe it's because with the secondary post Graves myxedema I have that they don't worry about the T levels so much.

Oddly, Synthroid by Flint has some batch inconsitency at times and I can tell somewhat if that months supply is a bit weak or strong....like if I lose or gain weight for no apparent reason. I just live with it.

Funny....I was hyper for year before I knew when I got super thin 6'5"/180 pounds and my eyes started to bulge...BUT I felt great....lots of big energy and very very sharp and quick but needed lots of naps. Sex drive...off the charts..lol. Then I noticed my eyes and trembling hands and a bit of nervousness. I read up on my symptoms and talked to relatives and we figured that yep I had the family curse too (less in common in men) and I went to the endocrinologist. He put a piece of paper in my trembling hands, looked and my bulging eyes and gaunt figure and swore that if I didn't have Graves he's resign his license to practice..lol

Everything since after the second radio-iodine treatment has felt a but slower....you get used to being hyper and like it...I did. I was 32 or so when I first got diagnosed.

My little brother at the same age started the symptoms last year....I could see it right away and it took me about 6 months to get him to the doc. He now takes syntroid .125 after his first treatment knocked him out.

Good luck...it's a malady to be sure but they've come a long way with it.

[wardaddy]

LOL....you both know the whipped cream or cottage cheese fixes well.

I use them both....had cottage cheese tonight with just a hair of redi-whip to sweeten.

I need some splenda myself.

[Kay Soze]

Bump for later reading.

[jacquej]

Mine is the primary type. No clue as to why my thyroid started to fail, but Hashimoto's seems the best bet.

It is harder to get the dose right when there is an ongoing and gradual failure. I had to go to an endocrinologist when the synthetic t4 replacement, either synthroid or levoxyl, didn't seem to doing much for the symptoms. Family physicians tend to be cautious when prescribing thyroid medication, and even tho he kept gradually increasing my dosage as my tsh kept creeping up, it never seemed to catch up.

What most do not realize is that a failing thyroid affects just about every organ system in the body, and the symptoms mimic just about every illness known to man. Over the years of gradually failing thyroid, with not enough medication to keep up with it, I gained over 80 lbs, and couldn't figure out why. No diet seemed to work to control it, either.

Only getting the cytomel added stopped the constant weight gain, and then after trying all the regular diets, only Atkins seemed to work to get any of the pounds off.

One thing I learned from the endocrinologist is that the tsh has to be a lot lower than the average family physician wants it to be. The latter are happy to get it under the high end of the normal range, whereas the endo wants it just above the low end of the normal range.

Even when my tsh is optimal, I still have days when I feel sub-par, but have learned to live with it.

[dennisw]

Atkins is essentially right both from the human evolutionary and metabolic perspectives.

UNTRUE. There are plenty of normal weight people across the globe who eat carbohydrates and eat meat chicken fish along with them. I am well aware of the "cave man" diet idea. I first read of it in 1985. And it's applicable to some peoples. However it's not a universal truth since some ethnic groups digestive systems have changed over the thousands of tears to live on more cooked grains and such. There aren't too many fat people in China, India, Japan. Same for the poorer Arab nations. There are plenty of skinny little Mexicans/Latin Americans who live on rice beans chicken and do well.

[dennisw]

Atkins is not universal,not for everyone. Don't be brainwashed.

[machman]

A diet is simple, unchanging, and not in any way dependent on any single weight loss scheme. Weight is a function of the difference in the amount of calories consumed and the amount of calories expended. In order to gain weight simply consume more calories than you expend, to lose weight just reverse it, consume less calories than you expend.

This is how I have always believed and lived. To me, its not rocket science. I have a hard time beleiving people who weight 300 lbs and say, "I only eat salads", or I eat like a bird. Most likely that "salad" is loaded with dressing, cheese, croutons, bacon, ham, etc. This "diet food" is loaded with fat, fat, fat, and probably approches 1,000 calories+. Most likely these people try to starve themselves, which lowers their metabolism, then binge eat, sure sure fire method for disasterous failure.

I went on my "diet" last summer, partly due to the fact I was told I had gall stones. All it was at first was "eat less". Instead of 4 slices of Pizza, eat two. Instead of a burger and fries, just a burger with no mayo. I played a lot of golf last summer, and with out counting calories dropped 40 pounds in three months. In October, I started working out at the gym, and by the end of the year dropped another 10 pounds, but probably put on 5-10 pounds of muscle.

After the start of the the new year, I kept up the daily cardio work and every other day weight lifting, but started counting calories. I've kept it from 1,500 to 1,700 a day, kept track of my fat, carbs, protein, intake and have tried to keep my fat intake at 20-25% of my total calories, and have lost another 20 pounds.

My waist is now a 34, a year ago I could barly button up a pair of 42 inch pants. Total, I've gone from 260 to 190, the same as when I graduated HS in 1979.

But the key for me is this is not going to be a "diet", this is how I plan to eat for the rest of my life. I will adjust upwards my total calories when I want to stop losing weight, and do it by increasing my protein intake. I don't disagree with atkins, but the hard core no carb diet is just not sustainable on a long term basis IMO. I plan on tilting much more heavily towards protein, but I want to keep fat low also.

[angkor]

I gotta call BS on this one.

That's an interesting response.

Using Atkins, friend lost 10 lbs/month over 11 months for a total of 110 pounds.

Where's the BS?