Chocolate-covered CR

[Guest guest]

The Newest American Diet Craze -- How Sweet It Is: y

March 29 (Bloomberg) -- The chocolate diet is sweeping America. The

book expounding its wonders already has sold 2.78 million copies at

$26.95 ($18.87 on Amazon.com). Hershey Kisses are on back order.

Restaurants advertise ``low-protein'' menus. The progenitor and

promoter of the diet, Dr. Bea A. Sweetie, appears every day on talk

shows.

Inevitably, Sweetie is now preparing an initial public offering for

her Chocolate Inc. that underwriters predict will rival Google

Inc.'s.

Sweetie maintains that the very sugar in chocolate that dieters have

long avoided is exactly what they should have. Sugar, she says, gives

you an immediate shot of energy. Eat it all day and you will soon

become so energized that you'll exercise as never before. You will

work off far more calories than you'll consume -- and you'll lose

weight.

The diet's instigator, who has a medical degree from the Iowa

Internet Institute, says her years of study also show that eating

chocolate causes the brain to release the same chemical it does when

its owner falls in love; big eaters of chocolate will actually love

to work out. Ancillary benefit: Chocolate, the darker the better, may

limit the effects of bad cholesterol.

The Skinny

Sweetie's 169-page book ``Fitness Through Chocolate'' (large type,

much white space, oozing color photos of chocolate) explains her

theories.

``Chocolate is the key to the diet, but, of course, you can't eat

just chocolate ice cream and devil's-food cake all day,'' she says.

``You need to balance your diet with other sugars.''

That means daily doses of heavily sugared fruit drinks and soft

drinks, and lunch and dinner concentrating on potatoes and white

bread -- starches that quickly enter the bloodstream as sugar.

A typical Sweetie diet calls for chocolate-laced cereal and white

toast for breakfast, a white-bread sandwich made with jelly and just

a bit of peanut butter for lunch and baked or mashed potatoes (using

skim milk), green vegetables and white bread for dinner, with

chocolate whipped-cream pie for dessert.

Chocolate skim milk can wash down any meal. Chocolate granola bars

for snacks. ``There's clear evidence this diet works,'' Sweetie says.

``So many people are out there walking off their sugar spurts,

they're causing traffic jams.''

High-Carb

The diet's founder has copyrighted the bold C now stamped on such

products as ``supercocoa'' cereals, high-starch potatoes and bread

pudding mixes. Many U.S. restaurants also pay Sweetie to emblazon her

copyright on similar foods offered on low-protein menus. Sad to say,

some restaurants reap the benefits of the diet craze without paying.

Copyright fees are mere icing. Sweetie already has taken in more than

$10 million in royalties on her diet book, should get $5 million more

for paperback rights and is writing a sequel. The IPO of Chocolate

Inc. stock might pay off to the tune of $210 million, half of which

would go to the founder.

Chocolate Inc. would use its share of the proceeds to open Sweetie

Workout Centers, consisting of a library where employees explain the

chocolate diet and a larger, exercise area where the faithful work

off their weight on the latest equipment.

Sweetie's underwriters figure on a sale of 10 million shares at $18-

$21 each. With the country's diet craze merging with investors' love

for IPOs, bet on the top of the range and a tripling of the shares on

the first day of trading.

One small glitch has appeared. The U.S. Securities and Exchange

Commission has challenged some of the claims in the Chocolate Inc.

prospectus. Sweetie says she will work through this. While insisting

on the efficacy of her chocolate diet, she concedes, ``We may have

fudged a few things.''

To contact the writer of this column:

y in Ft. Myers, Florida, at dpauly@....

To contact the editor of this story:

Bill Ahearn in New York, or bahearn@....

Last Updated: March 29, 2004 00:04 EST