Phone: 651-646-6686

Feature Index

Atkins, Carbs, and Sustainability

The low-carb phenomenon can be seen everywhere, from fast-food restaurants wrapping their burgers in lettuce to pickle-bottle labels proclaiming the dills inside "carb-free" (as if something was changed about the pickles themselves). It would be impossible not to notice that carbohydrates are the focus of many people's latest set of "food rules."

According to the June 2004 issue of Consumer Reports, "Over 930 low carbohydrate food products have been introduced to US markets in the last five years." I predict we've merely seen the tip of the iceberg.

Are the high-protein, low-carbohydrate diets a good idea? It depends on whom you ask! For meat producers and margarine makers, the idea sings. If you market cookies, crackers, or bread, however, you are probably scrambling to create new products so you can flaunt lower "net carb" numbers.

Ask dietitians about the "low carb" craze and their responses are mixed. Most say stigmatizing any food group is a bad idea, one that leads to an unbalanced diet. Any lopsided diet is likely to lack essential nutrients. However, others see hope in the positive attention being paid to higher-fiber grain products-since fiber is subtracted from a product's "total carbohydrates" to yield the competitive "net carbs" numbers promoted by food labels these days.

I suppose for many people the key question about the new diets is, "Will they work for me? Will they help me lose weight and keep it off?" Truthfully, the jury is still out on that query. For most people, switching to a high-protein, low-carbohydrate food plan will mean a faster initial weight loss than consuming the same number of calories in a high-carbohydrate plan. This happens because the strictest low-carb diets cause the body to lose water weight in the first stages of adaptation. (Starvation also causes a huge loss of body water!)

However, after about a year on either low-carb or high-carb plans (having the same number of total calories) there is no statistical difference in the amount of weight lost, according to Dr. Gary Foster's studies at the University of Pennsylvania. It is important to note that the high-protein diets place greater stress on the body's kidneys as they remove the excess nitrogenous wastes from all the extra amino acids being consumed. Additionally, if the high-protein meats eaten are high in saturated fat, stress on the arteries can be expected.

As part of my program in nutrition at the University of Minnesota, I've been talking with morbidly obese patients who are considering gastric bypass surgery. To a person, they have tried nearly every popular diet and weight loss aid in the past 20 years, from cabbage soup to Metrical. Weight loss plans haven't helped them in the past, particularly those plans that don't teach a life-long way of eating. That's one criticism I have of the Atkins diet in particular.

As a socially conscious member of the Hampden Park Co-op, I've been thinking about the high-protein diets in a different light. I haven't heard a lot of attention being paid to this, but the high-protein diets are not within the financial reach of the poorer members of our society. It costs more money to eat high-protein foods than it does to eat high-carbohydrate foods. So, I see the high-protein diets as decadent in many respects, something that richer people can do more easily. Consider, too, the amount of money being invested in the silliest new "low carb" foods in light of the people still going to bed hungry in this country and you will see my point here.

Second, eating a lot of meat and meat products is hard on the earth, wasteful of resources overall. It takes many more acres of land to produce meat protein, in contrast with plant proteins. As my Introductory Biology text says, "Eating meat is a relatively inefficient way of tapping photosynthetic productivity. . . . Worldwide agriculture could successfully feed many more people than it does today if we all consumed only plant material." If you eat meat, does it really make sense to eat more than you need?

Whichever foods you decide to eat, consider the effects of your choices in the longer term and broader context, both for yourself and for others. Our day-to-day actions are important.