The low-carb diet and its effects on the bread industry

The High-Protein, Low-Carb Diet and its Effects

A jug of wine and thou but hold the bread.

Unless you own a bakery, you may not have noticed that sales of bread products have dropped about 40 percent within the past year. The reason? Well, bakers and bread manufacturers are blaming the growing popularity of low-carbohydrate diets.

And this new trend isn’t just hitting bakers; pasta, bagel and beer sales have also dipped. Earlier this year the Tortilla Industry Association hosted a meeting called “An Industry in Crisis: The High-Protein, Low-Carb Diet and its Effects on the Tortilla Industry.”

Mamasita!

A similar meeting has been scheduled by the National Bread Leadership Council to brainstorm ideas on how to coax the U.S. public into putting bread back on the table. But some enterprising bakers aren’t waiting around for a think-tank report. Adjusting to the changing market demands, low-carb breads are now popping up on grocery store shelves. A spokesman for a Georgia bakery reports that a new, reduced-carbohydrate bread has already proven to be their most successful product.

Needless to say, if you find yourself in the company of bakers, a mention of “Atkins” might be met with a frosty silence. So perhaps the lowest blow of all for those who bake or sell bread for a living is the fact that one of the popular new low-carb breads is produced by none other than Atkins Nutritionals.

According to the Atkins web site, Atkins Bread uses wheat proteins instead of flour. The result is a bread slice with only 3 net carbohydrates per slice, compared to 20 grams of carbs in a traditional slice of bread.

That’s what you call knowing which side your bread is buttered on.

Sources:
“Breadmakers Feel Pain From Atkins Diet” David Sharp, Associated Press, 11/8/03, yahoo.com
“Atkins Nutritionals, Inc. Removes Biggest Hurdle for Controlled Carbohydrate Followers by Introducing Atkins Bread” 2/4/02, atkins.com