Atkins Nutritionals Goes Belly-Up — Low Carb Still Strong

In case you’ve been sunning yourself in seclusion or burning the midnight oil, I wanted to make sure you caught this big low-carb story. (Sorry I didn’t write about it sooner, but I was doing some much-needed playing my B-Day weekend.)

On Sunday, Atkins Nutritionals Inc. — the privately owned company founded in 1989 by Dr. Robert Atkins to sell Atkins low-carb products — filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, as Reuters and others report.

Evidently, the company blamed its financial woes on the fact that demand has fallen for those packaged, processed foods emblazoned with the Atkins imprint and its signature red “A." In addition, Atkins Nutritionals faced fierce competition from rival low-carb products, which have flooded the marketplace. 

Please read on to get the full — and I hope — accurate story, which you’re not getting in accounts by the mainstream media (of which I used to be a member).

Not surprisingly, most reporters took Atkins Nutritionals’ financial woes as a sign that the low carb movement is deader than dead.

And sure enough, as they have for months, many reporters jumped to several erroneous conclusions. In fact, I’ve been searching in vain for a thorough, measured, accurately reported account of the status of the low-carb movement. 

It’s time to shed some light on these many inaccuracies, but let me tell you first where I stand.

• I am neither against nor for the Atkins diet — I believe it’s up to you what diet you follow. However, I do believe that the late Dr. Atkins (who passed away in 2003 after slipping on ice) deserves much praise for helping Americans to recognize the dangers of sugars and refined carbs and how eating too much can make you gain weight and get such diseases as heart disease and diabetes. (Indeed, in my upcoming book, SUGAR SHOCK!, I do rightly credit the diet guru for raising our consciousness about processed carbs.)
• I do not advocate eating a very, very low-carb diet (unless it’s for only a very, very limited amount of time like two weeks). Rather, I’m a huge fan of eating quality carbs — superior, wholesome, straight-from-Mother-Nature carbohydrates like vegetables and low-sugar fruits. I’m also in favor of whole grains in limited amounts (if you don’t have any grain allergies).
• The term "low carb," in my opinion, is misleading, because often people mean quality, unprocessed carbs when they use the phrase low carb.
• I am deadset against specially manufactured low-carb products. (Read below.)

Now I’ll debunk some of the assumptions made by the "MSM," a term coined by blogger and Blog author Hugh Hewitt to refer collectively to journalists working for the mainstream media.

1. Assumption: The fact that Atkins Nutritionals is going belly-up is undeniable proof that the low carb "craze" is way past dead. Wrong!

Accurate Info: Atkins Nutritionals filed for bankruptcy, because this company — along with Kraft Foods, Inc. and many more corporations — jumped onto the bandwagon to glut the market with processed, low-carb protein bars and other foods that tend to contain a plethora of chemicals and/or artificial sweeteners.

Not only that, but many of these low-carb foods from a variety of manufacturers taste bad and cost too much. What’s more, some of them even get you sick.

What’s dying is the sales of awful-tasting, nutritionally dubious low-carb products from a bunch of different manufacturers. (To blame it all on Atkins is absurd.)

These foods (if you want to call them that) "have fallen by the wayside, because we don’t need them," Vanessa Sands, editor in chief of Low Carb Energy told me some months ago. "You could live on a farm and still eat fresh low-carb foods."

Sure, it is is undeniable that interest in low-carbing has waned, according to some surveys.

On the other hand, according to a survey released in February of this year from Opinion Dynamics, some 12 percent of the U.S. population are still losing weight by watching their carb intake. In fact, yet another new low-carb study is getting underway and is seeking participants.

2. Assumption: People have simply tired of the once-hot, low-carb craze, and they’re going to go back to breads and pasta. Partly true. Partly false.

Clarification: Some media accounts tend to ignore the important distinction between refined, processed carbs and whole grain carbs. Both the Atkins and South Beach diets have helped people to realize the value of shunning refined carbs — and they’re doing so more than ever before — often to lose weight. And, yes, total bread intake by low-carbers is down, down, down.

But another phenomenon is also simultaneously occurring — and one that’s attributable, in part, to the low-carb diet trend. People — usually non-dieters or even dieters — haven’t quit eating breads or even pastas; they’re just eating whole-grain versions — and less of them than before.

In other words, folks are watching the quality of their carbs and they’re even cutting back. I and most members of my online KickSugar group eschew processed breads in favor of whole grain breads from such places like French Meadow Bakery. (Check out my favorite bread here. But I usually only have a slice once every day or every couple of days.)

3. Assumption: The Atkins Diet encourages people to overeat fatty foods like bacon. Not really accurate!

Accurate Info:  Yes, the Atkins Diet does encourage people to eat meats, but it promotes eating all kinds of meats, including lean ones. And the program simply doesn’t tell people to eat fat, fat, fat, as opponents insist.

"Low carb doesn’t mean you’re mainlining lard and eating pork rinds all day. It means making healthier choices in carbs and picking better-quality foods," Lora Ruffner, R.N., founder of Low Carb Luxury told me months ago while I was working on my upcoming book, SUGAR SHOCK!

4.  Assumption: The Atkins Diet says to eat a bunch of protein and it discourages eating vegetables and fruits. Partly wrong again.

Accurate Info: Yes, in the initial stages, fruit is discouraged and only limited amounts of veggies are allowed. But later on, people on the Atkins program follow a plan "that incorporates nutrient-dense carbohydrates such as fruits, vegetables, seeds, nuts, and whole grains," according to Colette Heimowitz, M.S., Atkins Nutritionals vice president of education and research. (She e-mailed this remark to me months ago.) "By always staying beneath their carb tolerance, they maintain their weight-loss goals." (I do, however, believe that the Atkins diet doesn’t encourage fruits as much as I’d like.)

Interestingly, three decidedly pro-low-carb websites cite other inaccuracies perpetrated by many in the MSM (mainstream media).

• CarbWire accurately observes that despite "the growing popular belief that low-carb dieting is dead," low-carb books are still selling well. "…Atkins Nutritionals Inc is primarily a food company–not a publishing company (the publisher of New Diet Revolution is Avon Books, a division of Harper Collins)."
• Lisa Shea, low-carb editor Bella Online notes that studies now show that "80% or more of US consumers now pay attention to what carbs they eat. They eat less white bread, more whole grain bread. They drink more diet soda, less sugar-filled soda. People who used to pump fruit juices into their kids now know that they have just as much sugar as sodas." (As noted previously, I don’t promote diet soda, since I’ve heard so many concerns from nutritionists and researchers.)
• And low-carber Jimmy Moore — who lost 180 pounds on a low-carb diet — aptly notes in his Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb blog that the Atkins Nutritionals bankruptcy announcement "really means nothing regarding the future of low-carb."

Meanwhile, Atkins Nutritionals looks like it’s going to endure despite its money problems.

Although the company owes $300 million in outstanding principal and interest, it has received $25 million to operate during bankruptcy proceedings, according to Forbes.

Moreover, it has plans to carry on. Atkins Nutritionals president and CEO Mark S. Rodriguez said in a statement on the Atkins website that the company "will focus its energy on driving profitable growth within its core nutrition bar and shake portfolio." (That means you’ll still be able to buy those Atkins bars, which contain the controversial sweetener Splenda.)

Enough of all this carb seriousness.

Now let’s take a moment for a silly spoof promoting a Low-Cash Diet from Andy Borowitz in Newsweek.

Care to comment on this low-carb news? Feel free to spout off here. If I — goodness forbid — made any errors, correct me!