The below article appeared in my local paper today.  It appears that the
Atkins people are backpedaling by saying that they advise that their diet
guidelines advocate only 20% fat and that it should be composed of mainly
unsaturated fats such as those found in vegetable oils and fish rather than
red meat, butter, etc.  What a disappointment.  Before Atkins used to
advocate higher fat diets, especially if you were having trouble losing
weight.

Kim


After advising dieters for years to satisfy their hunger with liberal
amounts of steak, eggs and cheese, the promoters of the Atkins diet now say
that people on their plan should limit the amount of red meat and saturated
fat they eat.

Responding to years of criticism from scientists that the Atkins version of
a low-carbohydrate regimen might lead to heart disease and other health
problems, the director of research and education for Atkins Nutritionals,
Colette Heimowitz, is telling health professionals in seminars around the
country that only 20 percent of a dieter's calories should come from
saturated fat. Atkins Nutritionals was set up by Dr. Robert C. Atkins to
sell Atkins products and promote the diet.

An Atkins spokesman said that Heimowitz has been giving these seminars for
five years and that they do not represent a departure from the original
premise of the diet.

Atkins representatives say that Atkins, who died of a head injury last year,
always maintained that people should eat other food besides red meat but had
difficulty getting that message out. There has been a revision in expressing
how to follow the diet, not in the diet itself, they say.

But Atkins is widely known as the diet that lets you eat all the meat you
want.

The change comes as Atkins faces competition from other low-carbohydrate
diets that call for less saturated fat.

Atkins officials are increasing the amount of fat that should be unsaturated
(the kind that comes from most vegetable oils and fish) rather than
saturated (the kind that comes from meat, cheese and butter, which has been
linked to heart disease and other problems). The revision places more
emphasis on fish and chicken.

The clarification came as a surprise to Atkins dieters who were interviewed.

"A lot of people will be totally shocked," said Ellen Bain, a graphic
designer in Brooklyn. The message she said she had taken away from reading
Atkins books and Web sites was: "The fat in the diet is very good for you;
it doesn't make any difference what kind of fat it is. There are no limits
of any kind in the meat department, like steak and eggs for breakfast, a
burger for lunch and beef stir-fry for dinner."

Russ Klein, a marketing executive, who has been on Atkins since Dec. 21,
interpreted the phrase "foods you may eat liberally" to mean "eat until you
are full." And, he added, "I think it's probably true you can eat all the
red meat you want."

Heimowitz said people read the phrase "eat liberally" as a license to gorge
on red meat.

"Not making a distinction between one kind of protein and another, that was
a mistake," Heimowitz said, "and that is why we had to write another book,
to get the story straight."

But, she added, "Even in the old book it says, 'eat until you are satisfied
but not stuffed.' "

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