Atkins Files For Bankruptcy

I'm not a big fan of the Atkins diet. I know it works, but I'm well aware of its flaws. I wonder whether is dip in popularity had anything to do with the side effects of eating high fat foods and not enough vegetables.

You do have a point that Atkins did make some contributions in nutritional research, but I disagree that this contribution was massive.

Just my opinion

I'm a four year Atkins dieter. I did however put his baking mix and protien bar in the trash. I think they went wrong making that stuff in the first place. I just go by the food advice, which if you read the books includes more vegetables than most people ever eat. It is these packaged food products that the rest of the food processing industry tried to compete with. Carb replacements are not easy to make taste good. The stores are full now of many more low carb replacement type products than Atkins. What if they don't taste good either. This bad tasting stuff is probably what is killing the trend.

The food processing industry made a lot of new "low carb" products when they already had it on the shelves. Such as mayo and salad dressing. The waste of money on new recipes and packaging may hurt a whole lot more business. All this madness occured because people started buying more produce,protien,and dairy than bread, cookies and cereal. If the food companies such as Kraft had done some research, they would have recognized increase in sales of mayo, salad dressing and cheeses. They had the best of both worlds without having to change one recipe or product label. Some such as South Beach recommend this diet with low fat condiments.

Atkins was first published in 1969. If people doing this diet for 36 years didn't need special diet food products why would they need it now.

Atkins was just a little guy compared to giant food corporations. Their overblown reaction to him may just bring some of them down too. Ironic.

I'm not 100% suprised, it was bound to happen, when it turned into a fad vs. being about educating people on processed carbs and then they started selling processed carbs, it went the way of the 90's low fat/no fat craze.

I'm on pins and needles to see what's next. I've been reading about how great protein is, so I'm thinking that's the next nutrient to be exploited *rolls eyes*

As Frances implies, I think it's important to separate the directions that Atkins Nutritionals went from the original advice from Dr. Atkins.

Low carb is legitimate dietary sense for certain people. The craze and subsequent exploitation is where everything went wrong.

In my opinion its not the taste or any issue with the diet. It is the big loss to big businesses hence this diet was pushed into downfall. Just run the numbers and see. Atkins diet at one point had over 25 million people on it (don't know what the numbers are now), add anothet 3-5 million on top of it with people doing other versions of low-carb (also include people who cheat while doing low-carb diet but still consume less carbs comparatively). 30million is almost 8-10% of US population. This population is suddenly not consuming Potatoes, Rice, Pasta, Candies, Chocolates, Puddings, Cakes etc. (Ever thought how did SPLENDA become such a big brand overnight????) Now plug the numbers.....if 9% of US population had suddenly stopped eating these everyday foods what would have happened to the economy and business health of these businesses? 'Wonder Bread' filed for bankruptcy last year blaming low-carb diets as the reason for major drop in sales. That was wonder bread....now think of breakfast cereal gian like Kellog Company...9 billion $$ of revenue with serious R&D budgets. Companies like these have R&D divisions to kill competition products by taking some small issue and twisting the truth.

The diet is being misunderstood badly. Especially by the ones who don't have the patience to read thru the book and understand the principals and logic behind low-carb. Large companies understand consumer mindset and have seen this as an advantage and have been able to swing people's mind in another direction.

If you've been on Atkins for years,are you now slimmer or fatter? Thats all that matters.The theory can be argued for days-for either side.This is a diet blog.Did you lose the weight or not?Yes or no.Not why.

I just wanted to say that the atkins diet was totally against processed "junk" in the past. The "net carb" thing killed the company, because people weren't as successful on it as they were counting total carbs. I couldn't even get into ketosis. This way of eating was first directed towards eating naturally occuring foods, besides the occasional snack.. Read the book from the 60's!

I just would like to say that low not no carb eating
has saved my husbands life. He is a type 2 diabetic,
he has had a heart attack, has high blood pressure and
high cholesterol. He has never been over weight in his
life. His condition is hereditary. I used common sense
and read the South Beach Diet Book, which is written by
a cardiologist who didn't set out to write a book, but
just give his patients common sense eating guidlines.
If people wouldn't go so crazy in one direction and then
the next and used common sense as I have they would eat
heathily and also satisfy all of those cravings. I had
to lose a few pounds (really 40) and it came off in the
process. I do use the Atkins bake mix with gluten and
make myself a wonderful cinammon roll every day to satisfy that sweet tooth of mine. I add some yeast, a
tsp. of healthy oil and splenda and cinammon. It is
wonderful and it is very fast to prepare.

I have to say that I have used Atkins in the past, and lost 60 pounds in 7 months. Low carb does work and unfortunately many people don't realize that you don't have to have hi fat foods on it. You can substitute with veggies and friuts.

I have to admit, I tried the Atkins diet and followed it exactly per his book and IT WORKED! The pounds just melted away. It was shocking. I did experience pain in my back and kidney area though. For this reason, after 5 weeks and 25lbs lighter (from 179 to 154lbs) I left the diet and switched to a low calorie food group diet which was much harder. 3 months after stopping Atkins I had major hair loss that lasted 2 months. (I was 38 years old and had a baby 2 year before) I lost 1/8 of my hair (brown hair) and when it grew back, much was gray. My Dr. said Atkins was probably the cause. I believe the concept works, but at what expense! hile on this diet I felt better and discovered I'm allergic to wheat. My face cleared-up and I was no longer bloated all the time. I've got to say the diet HELPED me find and work out many problems I was experienced. I did slowly re-gain 10 lbs back after the diet, but I ate it back on! I'm 41 now, back up to 163. With 5 boys, it is a easy diet to live by. But only till I lose 15 lbs, then try to eat less and more food groups, not sugar, no processed foods.