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Produced & Maintained by Idaho Mountain Express, Box 1013, Ketchum, ID 83340-1013 
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Copyright © 2003 Express Publishing Inc.
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Friday, June 25, 2004

Other Views

Carb-O-Nation

Commentary by MICHAEL AMES

Michael Ames, the former publisher of The Street, recommends eating this newspaper.


Low-carb lemonade. Low-carb salad. Low-carb pet food. Real products, all, peddled to the burgeoning bellies and malleable minds of our increasingly gelatinous nation. A quick stroll through any supermarket reveals the diet’s amoebic reach: low-carb wine, low-carb bread, low-carb vegetables. It’s endless.

Dr. Atkins, who is to blame for most of the carbohydrate-scapegoating and protein-pushing, recently died. His death led to mass speculation. Some say he was morbidly overweight, saturated by own fatty doctrine. The Atkins estate swears he fell down the stairs and bashed his head, but looked fit and trim in the process. Regardless of the cause of the man’s untimely demise, his "Diet Revolution" has caused an unprecedented nutritional hysteria.

All across the country, people are ordering "naked" burgers and sandwiches, sans buns. "Double bacon cheeseburger, no bun," has become an acceptably health conscious entrée. The fast-food joints are on the ball, with Subway offering Atkins Friendly Wraps, lower in carbs, but significantly higher in calories and fat than their sandwiches. Donatos, a national pizza chain, now offers "NoDough Low-Carb Pizza," which features "lots of cheese and toppings" melted onto a "bed of protein rich crumbles that you can eat with a fork." Yum.

Some signs point to a slowdown, though. A Florida man filed a lawsuit with the Atkins estate after his cholesterol jumped from 146 to 230 with two months dieting. The wanton gluttony that has made this diet so attractive may ultimately be its undoing.

It may be tasty, but, according to many nutritionists, extremely unhealthy to overload your system with meat and protein. Sustainable relationships, even with diets, ultimately require compromise. You eat less of this, more of that, you partake in that zany old-fashioned pastime called "exercise," and you lose weight.

Simple logic, however, make not a successful marketing campaign. To make America go ga-ga, Atkins offers high dividends at little to no emotional cost. In giving people what they want, by telling a country that it can have its steak (and its cheese and its beer and its chocolate), and eat it, too, the low-carb craze has become the pusher to our smack-addicted populace. The diet succeeds not by what it achieves, but by what it concedes.

Now, the race is on to produce low-carb versions of just about everything. Low-carb carbohydrate is not a paradox; it is our reality, people.

But in breads and grains, have we not finally chosen a scapegoat that is inherently good? What of the manna that fell from the heavens and fed the Jews for 40 years of dry desert exile? What of the bread that is the offering and body of Christ? Will the Church be the next to cave, offering a low-carb Eucharist?

What other low-carb constructs await?

Low-Carb Envelopes: Can you be Atkins friendly while licking all those carb-heavy envelope adhesives? Now you can! Lick away, guilt free!

Low-Carb Toothpicks: Unlike wood, these lightweight, magnesium alloy toothpicks never splinter, so you don’t have to worry about ingesting particles of cellulose, a very big and nasty carbohydrate. Pick away, guilt free!

Low-Carb Lipbalm: Just because the country is fat, doesn’t mean your lips have to be! Go ahead, moisturize, guilt free!

The dieting formula has never changed. Eat what you need; exercise for body, for mind, for spirit and be healthy. Don’t believe the hype. Eat bread.

Homefinder

City of Ketchum

Formula Sports

Windermere

Edmark GM Superstore : Nampa, Idaho

Premier Resorts Sun Valley

High Country Property Rentals


The Idaho Mountain Express is distributed free to residents and guests throughout the Sun Valley, Idaho resort area community. Subscribers to the Idaho Mountain Express will read these stories and others in this week's issue.





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