Just like in clothing and hairstyle, from time to time a new fad/fashion appears about food. I was surprised on my last visit to the US to discover this new rubbish called Low Carb. Not surprisingly a few months later I came across this article:

Health - Reuters
Low-Carb Fad Seen as Unhealthy and a Ripoff

Jun 22 2004 

By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Popular low-carbohydrate diets are leading Americans to poor health and spawning a rip-off industry of "carb-friendly" products, health experts and consumer advocates said on Tuesday.

"When unproven science becomes a sales pitch, some people get rich and the rest of us get ripped off," Jeffrey Prince of the American Institute for Cancer Research told a news conference.

"Eating vegetables, fruits, whole grains and beans, which are all predominantly carbohydrate, is linked to a reduced risk of cancer, heart disease, stroke, diabetes and a range of other chronic diseases."

Too Much Red Meat Bad for Long-Term Health

February 23 2005

By Alison McCook

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - When it comes to high protein diets and health, the source of the protein really does matter, new research suggests.

After following nearly 30,000 women for 15 years, investigators found that women were more likely to die from heart disease if they often substituted red meat for carbohydrates. In contrast, swapping vegetable sources of protein for carbs appeared to protect women from heart disease.

"Our main finding was that animal compared to vegetable sources of protein seem to have a different effect on dying from heart disease," study author Dr. Linda E. Kelemen from the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine in Rochester, Minnesota told Reuters Health.

NEW YORK - The company started by the late nutrition guru Dr. Robert C. Atkins to promote a low-carb lifestyle has filed for bankruptcy court protection, a further sign of the waning popularity of the diet.

...
A recent survey by the NPD Group, an independent marketing information company, found that the number of American adults on any low-carb diet peaked at 9.1 percent last February and dropped to 3.6 percent by mid-November.