Along with the bankruptcy of Atkins Nutritionals Inc, the renewed sales of forbidden foods are evidence that the low-carb craze is over.
In its wake, food experts said, is a lingering "carb awareness" and interest in nutrition that is driving demand for whole grains and natural foods.
"Whole grain is a huge phenomenon in bread products right now," said Nan Redmond, communications director for Pepperidge Farm, a division of Camden, New Jersey-based Campbell Soup Co.
Low-carbohydrate diets such as Atkins favour meat, eggs and green vegetables over white bread, pasta and fruit.
"I think consumers are sort of burning out or are sceptical of 'fad' diets and are beginning to understand that the most sensible way to long-term weight control is to balance," said Bob Goldin, executive vice-president of Technomic Inc, a food-industry research firm in Chicago.
Harry Balzer, vice-president of NPD Group, a marketing-information company in Port Washington, New York, said he thought the lesson from the low-carb era was that people liked to try new stuff.
"I think the legacy of this is that Americans aren't looking for the way to lose weight or the way to eat better," he said.
Kraft is betting that its 29 products based on the South Beach Diet, which eschews some of the same foods as Atkins, will be among them.
Over the last 11 months, Idaho farmers have shipped 500,000 more 20 kg sacks of potatoes than they did over that same time period last year - a one per cent increase, said Frank Muir, president and CEO of the Idaho Potato Commission.
In the last two years, his group spent $US6 million advertising the health benefits of potatoes.
Todd Hultquist, a spokesman for the Food Marketing Institute, a trade association for food retailers and wholesalers, said the natural and organic sector was growing rapidly in mainstream food stores, a response to competition from grocers like Whole Foods.