Atkins: Lost Souls

I'm mad as hell, so here goes a shot

The Atkins organization ("Nutritionals," et al) is, I believe, doing a tremendous disservice to the great work done by its pioneer, Dr. Robert Atkins.

Frankly: that company sells virtually nothing but processed crap. Bars & shakes loaded with soy, artificial sweeteners, unpronounceable, mystery ingredients, and other Bad Stuff®. And now, it's All-Purpose Baking Mix and Penne Pasta, both absolutely chock full of gluten. Here's the press release.

The ingredients for one of the bars are what you see to the left. Amazing, eh? So, their only distinction from your run of the mill boxed crap is that it's lower in carbs? I guess so.

Here's the ingredients for the baking mix: "Wheat Gluten, Whole Grain Soy Flour, Modified Wheat Starch, Unprocessed Wheat Bran. CONTAINS WHEAT AND SOY." And the penne pasta: "Enriched Semolina (Semolina, Niacin, Iron (Ferrous Sulfate), Thiamin Mononitrate (Vitamin B1), Riboflavin (Vitamin B2, Folic Acid), Modified Wheat Starch, Wheat Gluten, Wheat Protein Isloate. CONTAINS WHEAT."

Soy has no place whatsoever in the human diet (please see here and here). And, neither does wheat, or grains in general.

What I'm wondering is how may people with undiagnosed celiac disease (not a simple diagnosis) or gluten sensitivity -- that doesn't rise to the level of full-blown celiac disease -- are unwittingly going to use these and other Atkins products -- often touted as "high protein" (i.e., gluten & soy) -- to the general detriment of their health? From the press release.

The Atkins All Purpose Baking Mix is nutritionally sound, providing high levels of protein and fiber in each serving with only 1 gram of sugar. Each serving contains 20 grams of protein, 6 grams of fiber, 150 calories and only 5 net carbs.

[...]

Atkins Penne Pasta, made with enriched semolina wheat, packs a powerful protein punch, offering 11 grams of protein and 18 grams of fiber per serving. At only 140 calories per serving, Atkins Penne Pasta has only 1 gram of sugar and 19 grams of net carbs - half the carbs of regular pasta!

See what I mean? They are actually touting the gluten & soy!

There's more. What's with this obsession with having to not miss out? We did fine without grains, bread, pasta, pancakes, muffins and so on for over 2 million years (hint: we ate meat, vegetables, animal fats, fruits, and nuts), and now we can't? Again, from the press release.

"With the Atkins All Purpose Baking Mix and Penne Pasta, we're providing consumers with a wider range of healthy and delicious foods to enjoy as they embrace a low-carb lifestyle," said Jennifer McGhee, VP of Marketing for Atkins Nutritionals, Inc. "For years, people mistakenly thought that on Atkins, they'd never be able to eat bread or pasta again. Now with our new products, it's possible to enjoy lower carb versions of these foods without relinquishing taste."

"From a health standpoint, Atkins All Purpose Baking Mix and lower-carb Penne Pasta is great for people who need to better control their blood sugar, such as those following low-glycemic diets," added Colette Heimowitz, Vice President, Nutrition and Education at Atkins Nutritionals, Inc.

You know what? I knew Atkins' basic approach worked as far back as 1990, 19 years ago. how many times did I try it and fail? Oh, at least a half dozen, and the most I ever went was maybe three months. The focus was all wrong: low carb. In other words, the focus is on a method and not a principle -- such principle being that we evolved to eat Real Food, and not wheat, soy, and a laundry list of artificial flavors, preservatives and who knows what all else. By focussing on method and not principle, you'll never fix the one thing that will keep most of you failing or miserable: hunger. There is no more sure, effective way to reset your hunger drive than with a natural diet. Atkins is doing its best to keep you on a modern diet, just one a bit lower in carbohydrate.

So what set this off? It was an email from Andea Davidoff of Atkins this morning, touting these new products.

I hope you are doing well. I wanted to let you know Atkins Nutritionals, Inc. announced that their new low-carb All Purpose Baking Mix and lower-carb Penne Pasta can now be pre-ordered by consumers at Atkins.com. You can view a full press release here.

Starting August 1st, both products will be available exclusively online at Atkins.com for a suggested retail price of $12.99 for a 2 pound pouch of baking mix and $3.99 for 12 oz. of penne pasta. The new Atkins All Purpose Baking Mix can be used to create a host of delicious baked goods such as pancakes, waffles, muffins and breads, while the Penne Pasta is made with enriched semolina wheat and has half the carbs of regular pasta!

These are two breakthrough products, and I’m happy to send you any further information, photos or recipes to utilize these products.

My reply:

I think, given the gluten content of those products, they are actually worse for health than the higher-carb versions.

I'm a Paleo advocate. Grains, particularly wheat, have no place in the human diet. Sorry to say that I believe that Atkins, et al, has lost its soul in the pursuit of popularity and financial gain.

She thanked me for my feedback. That being the case, I thought I'd be even more helpful.

Comments

[AJP]

Atkins products are junk.

I agree and think if Dr. Atkins were here today he would advocate a diet that is more primal.
He was already right on many primal points in one of his last books called Dr Atkins Age-Defying Diet Revolution (1999).
http://www.amazon.com/Dr-Atkins-Age-Defying-Diet-Revolution/dp/0312251890/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1247682325&sr=1-1
I think he was going in that direction.

As a side Richard, your comments are needed over at the Daily Apple forum on this post.
http://www.marksdailyapple.com/forum/topic/saturated-fat-how-is-it-okay-to-eat
Thanks!!!

[Grok]

Total madness we live in. I'm actually starting to come around in my thinking that it's really not people's fault that they're fat.

Even if they do try to make healthy lifestyle changes, it's pretty damn hard to cut though all the bullshit and get good information with all the money floating around out there. As you know, it's practically a full time job in itself.

[Richard Nikoley]

I just slapped a ton of links on the guy.

[Rocco Ernest]

This is similar to what I watch my family doing on weight watchers.

My sister talks to me about losing weight on WW - and shows me what they 'can eat', including cakes, cookies and ice cream, and all the stuff chock full of chemicals and Bad Stuff. She 'saves up' points so its ok to eat a bunch of snackwells? Ugh. In the next breath, all she does is complain about how she can't lose weight, is hungry all the time, etc. Then I tell her about the Paleo thing I've been on, and all the benefits (including weight loss, fat loss, ease of following, and health improvements on ALL FRONTS), and *I* get the crazy looks. I'd love to talk to someone at the WW organization and have them defend why its 'good' to eat preprocessed cookie-like blobs of psuedo food, but 'bad' to eat a steak.

[Richard Nikoley]

Modern Ignorance, Rocco. Dumbfounding.

[Arlo @phareon]

Great post. This makes me think about the greatest over-riding factor with changing a diet, and that's consciousness-raising yourself out of that natural brainwashing that comes from family, culture, media, etc.

It's like growing up in a religious family and then becoming an atheist. After enough reflection, evidence, experience, one day the scale tips and you have to go with what makes more sense.

The other big take-away I would say is that, as you say, when you focus on specifically demonizing a specific nutrient, all sorts of strange things are possible.

So first I started out with the idea that fat is bad, about 10 years ago when I as 20. So I went vegetarian for 2 years, because that seemed to be the more healthy thing to do. In trying selfishly to keep my original lifestyle I ate all sorts of crazy "meat-like" products packed with the kind of garbage (but to even more of an extent) as the Atkins stuff.

About 5 years ago I flirted with low-carb, and again, in trying to maintain my original style of diet I ate heaps of garbage, including a lot of Atkins or Atkins style stuff. I have some low-carb cookbooks and I'm amazed at how much of it contains absolutely strange ingredients and heaps of artificial sweeteners. Instead of fat-phobia, it becomes carb-phobia... an irrational fear of all things carbohydrate.

Of course now I've come around full circle and am trying to embrace the *lifestyle* of REALITY! We are sentient animals with specific mental and physical needs based on our evolutionary heritage. It all flows so cleanly from there.

[Richard Nikoley]

Very nice, Arlo.

[JT]

I've felt this way for quite a while. In discussions about Atkins I began to talk in terms of Old School Atkins vs. New Atkins.

Old School Atkins being you ate low carb and what carbs you ate came from real foods; vegetables, berries, fruit. ...and you don't count NET carbs...you count ALL carbs. This keeps the overall count lower.

New Atkins is over reliant upon highly processed products when in reality they don't need them at all.

I'm so glad that I found Neanderthin and other info on paleo diets - it's been a great ride ever since.

JT

[anand srivastava]

This fat phobia is nuts.

I have seen that almost all of our (indian) traditional foods are very high in fat. I will just give one example.

Daal Baati Choorma (from Rajasthan) - This dish is made from balls of wheat with filling of soaked and roasted lentils. The balls are boiled and then cooked submerged in ambers. These balls are then soaked in Ghee (butter oil). Later it is broken down and made it into a powder adding more ghee in the process. Then it is eaten with Lentil soup.

I went to Kerala this month. I used to think they eat a lot of coconut. But they actually don't eat it as much anymore. They used to cook in it, but now use mostly the palmolein oil (the cheapest oil available). But they still eat a lot of ghee. Every restaurant will have dishes made with ghee. I don't know how genuine the ghee will be, but I used it a lot to get a reduced Omega 6 food there.

I think the whole of India has used a lot of ghee to preserve their vegetarian lifestyle. I used to think mustard oil was important, but now I think that ghee is really the main thing.

I have increased my ghee consumption a lot, helping me to reduce my carb intake. Getting rid of Refined oil and Fructose are required anyway. With occasional carb less grilled chicken and IF, the diet has helped me a lot to reduce my fat by about 8Kgs over the last 4 months. I am now less than 80Kg from my peak of 95Kg. I am looking forward to being less than 75Kg. That will be something I haven't been outside of my college life.

After reading here and at Whole Health source blog, I have realized that Saturated fat is the best fuel source we have for our bodies. Rest of the fuel sources are not optimal including proteins.

I don't think it is good at all to get more proteins than required for muscle building. In Protein debate at http://exrx.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4007&sid=92f6f96505b211f30594c0cdf27e96f0, Dr Phillips argues that there is very little requirement for proteins. He says that the .8gm/Kg/day RDA is actually quite high for people who exercise. And building muscle doesn't increase the requirement much.

That rabbit starvation thing is a very good indicator of the protein problem.