Is The New Atkins Diet Healthy?

By Cara

Tuesday, April 6, 2010, 11:42

The new Atkins diet is not a healthy way to shed extra pounds, warn Kiwi food experts.

The new version of Atkins diet, which is available in bookstores across New Zealand, modifies the low-carbohydrate regimen unveiled by Dr. Robert Atkins in 1972 to suit the 21st century lifestyle and food habits.

Ever since it was launched, the four-phase Atkins Diet has been both popular and controversial.

While film stars like Renee Zellweger, Jennifer Aniston and Kim Cattrall followed the diet, which emphasises on high protein and minimum carbohydrate intake, to shed extra pounds, some dietitians criticized it for promoting meats and fats.

While the new Atkins Diet is quite pro-veggie, it fails to convince Christchurch dietitian, Janice Bremer.

“The new diet might offer more varieties of foods but coloured vegetables, fruits, whole grains, dried beans and milk products are still severely restricted by the carbohydrate-counting rule," says Bremer.

One has to be either desperate about weight loss or mad about eating meat to take on the traditional low-carbohydrate Atkins diet. Active, social humans are not programmed for no-carb diet. Very few people can readily cope with breakfast without cereal, sandwiches without bread, bolognaise without pasta, stir fry without rice, and strict limits on vegetables and fruits.

“Before cutting on carbs to reduce kilojoules for weight loss, one needs to curb the intake of sweets, bakery products, snack foods and other sugar-sweetened drinks," says experts who criticised the new Atkins diet.