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Hi All,

I thought that you might enjoy:

Date: Sun, 28 Mar 2004 08:31:04 +0100

From: " De backer " <roger.debacker@...> Add to Address

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Subject: [CR] The Atkins post mortem

crsociety@...

Hi all,

There was an interesting article in a German newspaper (Süddeutsche

Zeitung) about the causes of death of Dr. Atkins, that to my

knowledge,

has not been reported in this group with this kind of detail. Here is

the english translation:

" Game of billions with calories.

The carbohydrate diet and the strange death of the guru

Washington, in March - Of Dr. Atkins, one knows only the last

beaming photographs, on which the Guru posed in a white woolen

pullover,

lean and cheerful. Nothing indicated, that his body might abandon him

already two months later, that he would become puffed up, vegetate

away

in a coma, become bleak and cold. After his death a year ago, the

docters said that Dr. Atkins died from a head injury, he attracted by

falling in New York. They apparently failed to mention the clogged

arteries, the hearth weakened by attacks and the impressive weight at

death of the docter: 117 kg (257.9 lbs).

It should remain a secret of the trade. But then, a few weeks ago,

the

hospital report of the doubtful health condition of patient Dr.

Atkins

got into the hands of the Wall Street Journal and the most succesful

diet Guru in history was mocked " docter Fatkins " . Dr. Atkins is the

inventor of a so-called low fat-diet: eat less carbohydrates to lose

weight. And 50 million Americans follow even today his lead, among

them

prominent people like Bill Clinton. They avoid noodles, rice,

potatoes,

white bread and eat instead poundwize eggs, fish and meat, triple

omelets, beef and salmon steaks, in the morning, at noon, in the

evening. Instead of low fat, the word is low carb. For the Financial

Times it was the fastest change of direction in american eating

habits

since decades.

One third of the US-citizens is overweight, almost half a million die

each year from the consequences. Low-carb books can be found leading

the

bestseller lists, a book of cardiologist Arthur Agatston, about the

new

South-Beach-Diet, who gave the low-carb boom a conclusive push in the

past year, sold 5 million copies. " People know the number of

carbohydrates in their nutrition equally well as their social

security

number " , Brad Schultz, who opened the new food chain Pure Foods in

California, told people. And the lifestyle magazine LowCarb Living

finds

in the lowcarb food even a new feeling of life.

At the start of January, representatives of the big food producing

companies and distributer chains met at the Low-Carb-Summit in

Denver.

To them it is a new 25-billion-business. Since 1999 shoed the market

surveying group Mintel, 728 new lowcarb products reached the market

and

food producers renew ever more quickly their products. Even

completely

new brands were introduced: CarbFit and Adios Carbs, lowcarb

restaurants

opened their doors, the first lowcarb beer Michelob Ultra was brewed,

lowcarb noodles were produced as well as lowcarb sweets. Walmart

joins

the club as well as Mcs, Burger King and 's.

Spaghetti producers suffer together with rice producers and bakeries,

because their products are known as overweight producers. The stock

of

Cal-Maine Foods on the other hand, the biggest egg producer in the

USA,

rose in one year 1500%, the prices of eggs doubled. Buffalo meat is

trendy. 40% of the consumers watch today the amount of

carbohydrates

in food, says Polk, CEO of the food producer Unilever.

Already

the first anti-carbohydrate-Lobby, the Carbohydrate Awareness

Council,

emerged, that intends to focus the interests of the Low-Carb-Industry.

But there is also resistance. The citrus farmers spend 1.8 million US

dollars for a contra campaign for the salvage of thr fruit juice, the

potato-council produces ads for the " healthy potato " and Kimberley

Park,

president of the american rice farmers, threatens to tell that

lowcarb

dieters have bad breath.New York major Bloomberg lately

joked

over a spaghetti lunch of the New York Fire Department that once as

a

guest of the Atkins, he had to spit out his food in a napkin out of

disgust and furthermore he wouldn't buy " that nonsense, that Atkins

would have had an accident " . When Atkins' widow heard about this, she

required an apology, which Bloomberg provided together with an

invitation for a steak dinner. " without potatoes for sure " . Mrs

Atkins

did not accept the invitation.

Thus the article.

Regards

De backer

Luxemburg

Cheers, Al Pater.