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NEW YORK (Reuters) - Defenders of the carbohydrate are fighting back against the surging popularity of the Atkins and other high-protein diets. Potato and citrus-grower groups have launched multimillion-dollar marketing campaigns after studies showed demand for their products declining due in part to the low-carbohydrate diet craze. And the pasta industry is also raising money to fight back by advertising the nutritional benefits of its foods. These campaigns target the estimated 10 million Americans practicing low-carbohydrate diets. The trend has prompted the food industry to respond with various "low-carb" products, as companies are finding that ignoring the fad is hurting...

Gov't: Carbs to Blame for Weight Gain Thu Feb 5, 3:22 PM ET Add Health - AP to My Yahoo! By DANIEL YEE, Associated Press WriterATLANTA - Americans, especially women, are getting fatter because they eat much more of everything than they did 30 years ago, and carbs are the biggest culprit, the government said Thursday. In Yahoo! Health Chronic HeartburnNeed Relief? More from Yahoo! Health: • Check Your Symptoms • How Is It Diagnosed? • Available Treatments   In the year 2000, women ate the equivalent of one more large chocolate chip cookie every day — 335 more...

CDC Weighs Carb Fat Factor Atlanta - Americans, especially women, are getting fatter because they eat much more of everything than they did 30 years ago - and carbohydrates are the biggest culprit, the government said yesterday. In 2000, women ate the equivalent of one more large chocolate chip cookie every day - 335 more calories - compared with what they ate in 1971. Men ate 168 more calories - slightly more than a 12-ounce cola - each day, according to the study released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The finding comes amid repeated government warnings of...

Dec. 10, 2003 (Boston) Atkins Diet May Help Prevent Epileptic Seizures in Difficult-to-Treat Patients Jane Salodof MacNeil — Researchers at the Johns Hopkins Children's Center in Baltimore, Maryland, are experimenting with the Atkins diet as a possible regimen to prevent epileptic seizures in patients refractory to other therapeutic regimens. Pediatric neurologist Eric H. Kossoff, MD, told Medscape he got the idea from parents who would say, "Like the Atkins diet?" when he told them he wanted to put their children on the ketogenic diet, a more rigorous high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet used as anticonvulsant therapy for intractable patients. Both diets mimic...

Atkins diet has heavy influence on business By Dave Ferman Star-Telegram Staff Writer In 14 years of serving barbecue, Dustin Clark has never seen anything like this: Day after day, customer after customer at the Railhead Smokehouse in Colleyville orders meat and water -- and nothing else. They might ask for a half-pound of ribs or turkey, or a full pound of sliced beef, but it's always just meat and water, meat and water, 30 or so customers a day. "It's big-time now," Clark said. "You hear 'Atkins' all day long. It's been pretty constant for about a year." With...

ST. PETERSBURG - Atkins diet devotee Lisa Shelton tossed proof of her shrinking waistline - a pair of dark-blue denim, size 20 Lee jeans - over the bike rack at the Blimpie franchise downtown. Since August, the 29-year-old has lost 70 pounds. Her fast- food diet menu includes bacon cheeseburgers without the bun. Shelton and a long line of customers were attracted by heavy radio advertising by Blimpie promoting a new Carb Counter Menu of subs, chips and drinks - and the idea that a chain called Blimpie can help oversized Americans melt fat. In exchange for Blimpie food coupons,...

The recent explosion of low-carbohydrate diets is starting to weigh heavily on some food producers. Take Riviana Foods, a Houston-based company that is one of the nation's biggest distributors of branded and private-label rice. It is blaming the low-carb diet craze in part for lower profits. Other companies that specialize in carbohydrate-laden products such as potatoes, pasta and even orange juice are also feeling the heat. "We and other affected food marketers have yet to come up with an effective strategy to counteract these debatable diet plans," said Joseph Hafner Jr., Riviana's president and chief executive officer. The amount of...

New York's Mayor Bloomberg, a dedicated foe of tobacco doesn't like fat either - and he thinks it was fat and not a head injury that killed diet guru Dr. Robert Atkins. Chowing down at a New York firehouse, Bloomberg told firefighters "I don't believe that bull- s- - - - that [Atkins] dropped dead slipping on the sidewalk," Bloomberg said eating low fat bow-tie pasta, chicken and vegetables with FDNY Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta and a group of Brooklyn firefighters according to the New York Post. Atkins, whose high protein, low carb diet is the rage across America reportedly died...

TUESDAY, Dec. 9 (HealthDayNews) -- The popular low-carbohydrate Atkins diet may help children with epilepsy avoid seizures, say researchers at Johns Hopkins Children's Center. In a small study of six patients on the high-protein regimen, half were nearly seizure-free for up to 20 months. "It might be a nice tool when other medications fail," says study author Dr. Eric Kossoff, a pediatric neurologist at Hopkins who was to present the findings Dec. 9 at the American Epilepsy Society's annual meeting in Boston. Dr. Wendy Mitchell, a pediatrics professor in the division of neurology at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles, says the...

December 17, 2003Drinkers See the Light in Low-Carb BeerBy JUDY LINASSOCIATED PRESSPITTSBURGH (AP) - Not since Miller made light beer socially acceptable with its "tastes great, less filling" campaign has the American brewing industry been as excited as it is now about a growing line of low-carb beers. Michelob Ultra, the first major brand to make a splash in the low-carb beer niche, has gotten more popular as Anheuser-Bush on Tuesday reported it taking a 2.1 percent share of supermarket beer sales. Rolling Rock last week toasted the shipment of 1 million cases of Rock Green Light in less than...

<p>Low-carb mania may reach new highs Monday when the Hardee's and Carl's Jr. hamburger chains announce plans to introduce the fast food world's first "low-carb burgers." The big bunless burgers - 1/3- to 1/2-pound - will come wrapped in large leaves of iceberg lettuce for a handhold on the burger and fixings.</p>

The lowdown on LowCarb Sweeteners Some call it ----ose, but think of it as SugarWhen dealing in chemistry, the ending "ose" indicates sugar; so beware of ---ose ingredients on food labels. Ordinary table sugar, the white granulated type, is known as sucrose. This is a list some of other names of sugars you might encounter are; sucrose, dextrose, fructose, lactose, glucose, maltose.BEWARE: "ose" sugars are pure carb, thus 1 gram of sugar = 1 gram of carbohydrate = 4 calories.Look for these other commonly used sugar-carbohydrate ingredients: white and brown sugar, succanat, turbinado, demerrara, molasses, corn syrup, maple syrup, honey,...

INDIANAPOLIS - Low-carbohydrate, high-protein diets adopted by millions of people hoping to lose weight have contributed to sharply rising egg prices, industry experts agree. Egg prices have spiked across the nation in recent weeks, reaching 20-year highs. Holiday baking and thinning chicken flocks are partly responsible, but protein-conscious dieters, including those on the popular if controversial Atkins diet, have created new demand. "Proteins have gone through the roof, and eggs have gone along for the ride," said Tom Kruchten, a spokesman at the National Agricultural Statistics Service. "Eggs are a heck of a lot cheaper protein than beef." In the...

If you're counting carbs -- and you know who you are -- there's a product for you. About a dozen new ones a week, in fact. From muffins to margaritas, food and beverage companies are rolling out a buffet of reduced-carbohydrate products to keep up with America's latest diet obsession. "This is a breakout year. We've definitely reached the craze point," said Tom Vierhile, executive editor of Productscan Online, a newsletter that tracks new products. More than 600 reduced-carbohydrate items have cropped up this year, double the number launched in recent years, Vierhile said. Supermarket experts say it's just the...

The following assertion is highly unappetizing, especially today, our national feast day of gluttony. "The Masai in Africa, all they eat is raw beef and drink raw beef blood and drink milk," says reproductive endocrinologist Gil Wilshire. They are lean and healthy and free from obesity and diabetes. They also, out of necessity, spend their lives obsessed with killing cattle and they certainly never get to sit on the couch watching football and chomping Chex Mix, but hey, you just can't have it all. The way Wilshire sees it, the Masai are still the hunter-gatherers we all were for 4...

NOVEMBER 10--Fresh from a $24,000 victory over the British tab that published her wedding photos, Catherine Zeta-Jones is fixing for her next legal fight--this time, if you can believe it, over published reports that the Academy Award winner shed pounds via the Atkins diet. In a warning letter sent last week to media outlets (see below), lawyers for Zeta-Jones assert that "her likeness and persona have been improperly linked" to the popular diet in press accounts, adding that the weight loss program "has been derided by nutritionists and other health care officials for decades." By incorrectly reporting that Zeta-Jones "uses...

Low-Carb, High-Fat Diet Drops Weight Atkins-Like Plan Won't Hurt Cholesterol Levels, but Critics Aren't Impressed By Sid Kirchheimer Reviewed By Michael Smith, MD on Tuesday, November 11, 2003 Nov. 11, 2003 -- Is it really possible to lose weight on a no-starch, high-fat diet, similar to Atkins, without hurting cholesterol levels? Apparently so, even for people with heart disease, according to the latest study on the topic. The new study details the effects of a no-starch, high-fat diet on 23 patients at risk for diabetes. All were overweight, were taking cholesterol-lowering statin drugs, and had been diagnosed with heart disease....

Rehab plan focuses on dietBy DAN RICE, Staff WriterAudrey Sunnyboy noticed a troubling trend when she entered the drug and alcohol treatment field in 1990. "I was watching people and was realizing that most of the Alaska Native people did not recover from alcoholism," she said. "And as I was going along, I would ask, 'Did you ever go to AA?' Then they would say, 'No, because I didn't want to talk.'" Sunnyboy said the realization that AA's 12-step program does not work for everyone, especially people who are reluctant to talk about themselves, is what led to her interest...

A growing group of stores and restaurants expand offerings for people following Atkins and similar diets. Isaiah and Maureen Copeland plan to open Copeland's Low Carb Cuisine Saturday in St. Petersburg. The store will offer everything from microwavable pork rinds and candy bars to books and tortillas. Isaiah and Maureen Copeland plan to open Copeland's Low Carb Cuisine Saturday in St. Petersburg. The store will offer everything from microwavable pork rinds and candy bars to books and tortillas Don Currie, a Tampa information technology project manager, has lost 41 pounds since Aug. 10 on the Atkins plan and has another...

The Atkins diet has triumphed, the French diet guru Michel Montignac is in resurgence and ''low carbs'' has become the mantra (or is it war cry?) of the fit and fabulous. So in a clever bit of adaptation, bread, once the benign starter to every restaurant meal, has migrated to the other, more sinful side of the menu. It has become dessert. Bread pudding, of course, has long been a favorite of children of all ages. And the French have always paired bread with chocolate; pain au chocolat is now ubiquitous. But the grilled chocolate sandwich is both simpler and...