Baker Turns Diet Sage to Counter Atkins

A baker who lost nearly half of his customers to the low-carb craze has tapped Dan Brown's best-selling novel for an Atkins alternative called the "Da Vinci Diet" that he hopes will bring people back to bread.

A little math theory kneaded with biblical lore from "The Da Vinci Code" has transformed Stephen Lanzalotta into a dietary sage, answering the "carbohydrate question" with a series of lectures propounding a diet he has followed for decades to maintain a muscular 160 pounds into middle age.

Admittedly, he is neither a nutritionist nor a scholar -- his background is in biology and biochemistry -- but Lanzalotta argues you don't have to look far to see a worldwide problem with obesity, and people have been eating bread for too long for it to suddenly be what is making everyone fat.

"Human civilization and grain have ties that go way back. No municipal society evolved without grain, no matter what it was," said Lanzalotta, who kneads his dough by hand like ancient breadmakers. "Not that I believe bread is one of the most sacred foods, but it is one of the most important things we can eat."

Bread forms the building blocks of the body and, in moderation, can lead people to more stable moods, clearer thoughts, and a rock hard body, right down to the washboard stomach of a Renaissance statue, Lanzalotta said.

The Da Vinci Diet he created consists mostly of Mediterranean foods -- the foods ancient thinkers and artists ate. Fish, cheese, vegetables, meat, nuts and wine, in addition to bread -- none are taboo at Da Vinci's table.

Based on mathematic values used to build the pyramids -- a value called Phi that scientists have since found existing everywhere in nature -- the Da Vinci diet doesn't seek to change biochemistry the way the Atkins diet does.

Instead, a person can use the ratio and tailor the principles to a diet fitted perfectly to the body you want, Lanzalotta said.

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