Low-carb fad may be dying, new report shows

In February of 2004, about 9.1 percent of the American population was on some sort of low-carbohydrate diet, a New York marketing firm reports. And a year later, only 4.4 percent of the country is still on the bandwagon, the study says.

The fad fell to an even lower 2.4 percent of the population during the December holiday season, and, while it has rebounded, it is still far below its former levels.

Some food companies that had boned-up on low-carbohydrate products in recent months are now faced with unsold stockpiles of low-carb foods.

• While Janice Gray was following the Atkins diet, visions of apple pie danced in her head, and in her dreams it was always a la mode.
• Hard to blame him, since he's Italian, and pasta -- or starch, at least -- runs in his blood.
• Gray lost 12 pounds in a year; Girouard dropped 35 in six months.
• Gray is more than twice Girouard's age, and they don't know each other, but besides weight loss, they have another thing in common: Both ditched the low-carb lifestyle when stress or sandwiches got the best of them.
• The food industry jumped on the low-carb bandwagon with astounding speed, introducing scores of new products -- many of which ended up stockpiled in warehouses.
• Between 2003 and 2004, the number of new low-carb products increased by 71 percent, but since then it has dropped by 57 percent, according to the Chicago research firm Mintel.
• While fewer people, at least according to NPD and Mintel, say they are on a low-carb diet, a quarter of the population still reports being ''carb-aware," Mogelonsky said, and that means there will remain a market for products aimed at them.
• Last year, NPD found that 13 percent of Americans expressed concern about their carbohydrate intake, compared to 30 percent who were worried about fat, down from 51 percent in 1994.
• Even in 2004, he said, 22 percent of all American dinners included potatoes, and almost a quarter included bread.
• ''For something to be a trend it has to cause a fundamental change in the way we behave -- it has to change the amount of time we spend, or the amount of money.
• She was OK giving up bread, she loved having eggs at breakfast, and she has ''never been a pasta or potatoes person."