Low-carb is biggest thing since sliced bread

Date: 24-01-2004 Posted by: Anabolic Info TeamUnited States

The carbohydrate may not be on Americans' plates right now, but it sure is on our minds. These days it seems it's all we can talk about.

We're eating bunless burgers, tortillaless tacos and mashed "potatoes" made from cauliflower. The low-carb craze is on nightstands and newsstands. The South Beach Diet is the No. 2 bestselling book in Arizona on amazon.com, and magazines from Newsweek to Bride's are weighing in.

There is low-carb bread, LeCarb ice cream and even Russell Stover low-carb chocolates, just in time for Valentine's Day. Americans speak a new low-carb lexicon, ordering breadless "protein style" burgers from fast-food menus, where there are low-carb combo meals: Would you like a salad and bottled water with that? And if you're not one of the 32 million Americans on the low-carb Atkins, South Beach or Zone diets, you have lunch with someone who is. (And you have to wonder, is it rude to order pasta?)

This week, it's on our minds even more as former President Clinton stepped out with a new South Beach-slim waistline, the infamous "presidential paunch" nowhere in sight.

Indeed, skipping carbs is the biggest thing since sliced bread. And you're not still eating that, are you?

"Low carbs is the wave of the future," says Anthony Georgoulis, manager of the new Salty Señorita restaurant in Scottsdale, where the menu was created with the carb-conscious in mind. "It's everywhere. You can't avoid it. Every restaurant has to do something to cater to it."

Of course, this is not the first time America has gone hog-wild over a diet. Before low-carb restaurant entrees, there were Weight Watchers points on menus. And who doesn't remember searching for the lowest-fat margarine on the shelf, even resorting to butter-flavored spray?

But this is the only diet with its own store in Scottsdale Fashion Square, where the Low Carb Mall shop is neighbors with Nordstrom. This is the diet that has spent 345 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list, where Dr. Atkins' New Diet Revolution reigns supreme. This is the diet that messed with American classics, turning the hamburger inside out and the food pyramid upside down. The low-carb concept is no longer the realm of fringe, fad dieters; it has infused our culture. The movement even has a mantra: "If it has crumbs, don't succumb."

Low-carb living "represents a shift in our relationship to food," says Eric Wertheimer, American studies professor at Arizona State University West. "Food has become a cultural site that is as much about scientific information as it is about how it tastes."

Low-carb living has made Americans into nutritional Einsteins; we know and discuss things we never knew before.

Consider our new vocabulary: saturated fats and trans fatty acids, glycemic index, total carbs vs. net carbs, and all of that.

We have dinner conversations in mixed company about the color of our KetoStrips, urine sticks that test for fat-burning levels in your body. (Vocab lesson: Low-carb eating can help induce ketosis, a condition in which the body is using stored fat as its major energy source.)

And although you probably won't see a bunless burger on the menu at Mary Elaine's at the Phoenician anytime soon, says Steve Chucri, president of the Arizona Restaurant and Hospitality Association, "you will see number counting" on upscale menus. You will be told the number of carbs in your white Zinfandel or Merlot.

The low-carb cultural infusion is evident away from the dining table, too.

In the hit pre-teen film The Lizzie McGuire Movie, the popular girl declares, "I don't eat carbs." Even triumphant (and presumably healthy) runners crossing the finish line at the P.F. Chang's Rock 'n' Roll Marathon this month were rewarded with coupons for two free beers, but they were Michelob Ultras, which boast just 2.6 carbs per serving

This month marks a new level of saturation for the low-carb craze as New Year's resolutions occupy America. And in the past year, study after study has come out supporting its weight-loss potential, though some medical experts still dispute its long-term safety and viability. But this increased acceptance, along with goals of swimsuit-worthy bodies by summer, has made for the diet's biggest moment.

Dishing on carb content, therefore, is the food industry's marketing tactic du jour. Every food product that can take the low-carb label wants one; on Central Avenue in Phoenix, a billboard boasts "Smirnoff Vodka, Zero Carbs."

Restaurant chains across the country want dieters to know of their new low-carb creations. Burger King recently placed a pricey ad in USA Today touting its new bunless burger. Chili's is offering an extended low-carb menu.

And although this low-carb craze has Americans talking, it also has dieters celebrat- ing.

Since July 2002, Kathleen Giancana, a 51-year-old Phoenix attorney, has dropped 60 pounds and says she couldn't have done it without the help of her friendly neighborhood fast-food restaurants. The new low-carb menu items are the secret, she says, to her slenderness.

And they save not only her waistline but also her pride.

"At first I was embarrassed," she says about ordering a hamburger and tossing the bun. "But now they just put it in a Styrofoam bowl and give you a knife and a fork. They're used to it now."

These days, that's probably what they ate for lunch, too.