Those following the Atkins low-carb plan aren't letting one mad cow stand between them and their next belt notch.
By TOM ZUCCO
Published January 14, 2004
[Times photo: Bill Serne]
Randy Colbeck, a meat cutter at George's Meat Market in St. Petersburg, said most people don't seem to be worried about mad cow disease.
If they approach the meat counter with any hesitation, it doesn't show. And if they're buying fewer steaks, roasts and ground beef patties, it's not registering.
This is the new year, which means it's the height of the diet season. And among the most popular diets are the high-protein, low-carbohydrate ones, including Atkins, that are big on beef.
But along came an incidence of mad cow disease. The perfect excuse to ditch the diet.
Apparently, though, Atkins dieters are sticking to their resolutions.
After an infected cow was found Dec. 23, burger chains reported no impact on sales, and after an initial selloff, investors have returned to beef-related stocks. Consumer confidence in U.S. beef remains high and statistically unchanged from September, according to a survey conducted Dec. 29-30 by the National Cattlemen's Beef Association.
And the millions of people on high-protein, beef-themed diets are sticking to them.
"I just had a burger for lunch," Anne Doheny, 46, said Tuesday. "I went home and cooked it on my George Foreman Grill. No bun, of course. And I had steak for dinner last night.
"I like to live dangerously," she added with a laugh.
Like many people, Doheny, a personal service representative for Palm Bank in Tampa who started the Atkins diet about six months ago, said that if the mad cow outbreak had been more widespread, she would have been concerned.
"But I feel it's rather contained."
That she feels that way is thanks to quick intervention by the government and the cattle industry, which reported that the disease appears to be confined to a single Canadian-born Holstein on a ranch in Washington state.
So far, there is no evidence the disease has spread, and America's love affair with steaks and burgers remains strong, fueled in part by the Atkins diet craze.
Industry analysts estimate as many as 30-million people in the United States are on low-carb, high-protein diets, and on USA Today's most recent list of the 150 best-selling books, three of the top 10 were South Beach and Atkins diet books.
Mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy, is a threat because scientists say humans can develop a brain-wasting illness, variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, from consuming beef products contaminated with BSE.
"A few people have asked about it, but most people aren't worried," said Randy Colbeck, a meat cutter at George's Meat Market in St. Petersburg. "The big thing is that the disease comes from the brain and spinal cord of the cow, and we don't handle that kind of meat."
What is of some concern to many is not what's in the beef, but the price, which had reached record highs late last year.
"In the last couple of months, I've eaten a little less beef," said Robin Thorne, 39, a New Port Richey paralegal who is on the Atkins diet. "But that's because the price has been going through the roof.
"My guess is that with the mad cow incident, it will come down.
"So in a weird way, it might be a good thing."
Not yet. Despite publicity about mad cow disease, local grocers say beef prices have not declined appreciably in the Tampa Bay area.
Aaron Perlut was one of the people who started his diet Jan. 1. But he tends to buy more chicken and pork, "because they're generally leaner than beef. And when I do eat beef, I tend to purchase organic beef."
Perlut, 32, a spokesman for Progress Energy, said his wife buys the beef in their family.
"I had a steak just the other day," he said, "and I really didn't think about mad cow disease.
"I guess ignorance is my salvation."
But he confesses he will get off his diet Jan. 31. "At that point I will reintroduce whole grain breads and pastas, as well as tomatoes and carrots, in an effort to ensure my heart does not explode."
