'South Beach' Means Hearts, Not Bikinis

[Guest guest]

Hi All,

From the NY Times this morning, but not my diet choice, is:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/14/dining/14SOUT.html?th

Doctor Wants 'South Beach' to Mean Hearts, Not Bikinis

By ALEX WITCHEL

Published: April 14, 2004

The end of our two-hour lunch, Dr. Arthur Agatston shook hands,

relieved. " Thank

you for not making me talk too much about food, " he said.

Not quite what you would expect from the man who created the South

Beach diet, but

as he says repeatedly, he is not a diet doctor. He is a cardiologist

who conceived

the diet (along with Marie Almon, the former chief clinical dietician

at Mount

Sinai Medical Center in Miami Beach) to lower his patients' risk of

heart attack and

stroke — not to help them look better in their bikinis.

Which is clearly a distinction without a difference to the general

public. Since

it was published last April, " The South Beach Diet " (Rodale) has gone

back to press

23 times with more than 7.7 million copies in print. The trade

paperback " South

Beach Diet Good Fats/Good Carbs Guide " (Rodale) has 3 million copies

in print. And

yesterday 1.75 million copies of " The South Beach Diet Cookbook "

(Rodale) went on

sale. But if Rodale is suddenly fat and happy, Dr. Agatston is less

so.

" I'm not Mr. Food, I've got to tell you, " he stated uncomfortably. " I

love to eat.

But I'm worried about people asking me details about different cuts

of meat. "

That didn't concern me. His forbidden meats include brisket, liver,

rib steak and

prime rib, all of which I can live without — now that I don't live

with my mother

— if only a baked potato were allowed. It's not. Neither are white

rice, bread,

pasta and almost any dessert known to man beside ricotta cheese mixed

with

artificial sweetener, which to my mouth, if not my hips, is somehow

not in the same league

with Entenmann's Fudge Iced Golden Cake.

Leaving all fantasies of cake in the dust, I met Dr. Agatston at

Bolo, 23 East

22nd Street, between Park Avenue South and Broadway, because its

chef, Bobby Flay —

along with other restaurateurs in New York and Miami — has provided a

recipe for

the new cookbook. His is called " Spanish Spiced Rubbed Chicken With

Mustard-Green

Onion Sauce, " which tastes better than it reads. Dr. Agatston,

apparently

uninterested in exploring the menu, ordered brick-roasted chicken

with tarragon black pepper

sauce and eggplant couscous with romesco sauce. The couscous remained

untouched.

" I went back on Phase 1 of the diet in January, " he said, referring

to the strict

two-week induction period. This phase excludes all starches and

sugars, which Dr.

Agatston said cause the large swings in blood sugars that trigger

food cravings.

(One tablespoon of ketchup, for instance, has four grams of sugar

while one

Hershey's Kiss has three.)

For those who consider diets as mind-numbing as accountants on awards

shows,

here's South Beach as fast as I can: The low-fat movement of the last

20 years was a

failure. We're eating too much processed food stripped of fiber and

nutrients, and

not enough omega-3 oils, which keep the heart healthy. The way to

beat this system

is to undergo the first two weeks of relative boot camp, essentially

a high

lean-protein diet (forget the butter and bacon of Atkins glory) with

an assortment of

vegetables and low-fat cheeses. But no alcohol, fruit or any of the

aforementioned

roads to nirvana. In Phase 2, you can add them in a measured way,

while

substituting whole grains for processed white flour, rice and pastas.

Phase 3 is maintenance,

a more lenient version of the same idea.

What really describes the plan best is Dr. Agatston's original name

for it: the

Modified Carbohydrate Diet. Not as glamorous as South Beach, but to

the point.

" Even in the first two weeks you eat enough vegetables and salads

that you don't

go into ketosis, " Dr. Agatston said, referring to the preferred state

of ecstasy

espoused in the Atkins diet where the body runs out of recently eaten

carbohydrates

and burns stored fat instead. Whether that harms you or helps you

physically has

been a subject of heated debate. But because the South Beach diet

does not advocate

it, Dr. Agatston seems to have escaped extreme criticism from the

medical and

nutritional establishments.

Cheers, Alan Pater