Grain industry expecting to reap benefits from new federal dietary guidelines; low-carb craze has hurt some companies recently

• The newly released Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2005 trumpet whole-grain foods as the greatest thing since sliced bread.
• The guidelines recommend one or two fewer daily servings of grain products, but Virgil Smail, the head of the grain science department at Kansas State University, said actual consumption should increase because of the guidelines' emphasis on whole grains as insurance against obesity, heart disease and colorectal cancer.
• In November, Kansas City-based American Italian Pasta Co. blamed its $12.2 million fourth-quarter loss, in part, on decreased pasta consumption because of low-carb diets.
• "The reduced-carb push really used pasta as a poster child for what was a bad carb," said Drew Lericos, director of marketing innovation for American Italian Pasta.
• Lericos said he expects sales of American Italian Pasta's traditional products, which are made from refined and enriched semolina flour, to head back up this year.
• Janette Gelroth, manager of the nutrition analytical labs at the American Institute of Baking in Manhattan, Kan., said wheat farmers and millers won't be hurt by a shift to whole grains.
• The new guidelines do not condemn refined-grain flours, such as those used in white bread, she said.
• But white bread does metabolize quicker, causing a greater fat-producing insulin spike, Gelroth said.
• For that reason, "a bread manufacturer who has 90 percent of their production in white bread might experience a detrimental impact" from the new guidelines, she said.
• Interstate Bakeries officials could not be reached for comment, but Gelroth said it's clear that the company and other bakers will have to put even more emphasis on whole grains.
• Meanwhile, companies are waiting to see what will happen with the new guidelines-based Food Guidance System, currently known as a Food Guide Pyramid.