The high cost of low-carb diets

For close to a year, low carb diets, led by Atkins and South Beach has become the number one diet of choice. In fact, according to ACNielsen, 17.2% of Americans are currently on a low-carb diet. While much discussion has ensued about the nutritional benefits (and drawbacks) to this type of diet, little has been written about the actual cost of maintaining such a diet plan.

Conventional wisdom suggests that going on a diet means you would eat less and therefore the cost of your food would be less as well; but the truth is that adhering to either Atkins or South Beach meal plans, as detailed in their books, is way more expensive than the typical family currently eats. Bringing up the question whether or not the folks that need to lose those extra pounds can actually afford to do so.

The average one person household spends approximately $59 a week on their groceries according to the Food Marketing Institute's 2004 Trends report. We wanted to calculate just how much the two leading low carb diets would cost, so we broke down each recipe and meal plan (for one person) and found that strictly following the portion size and ingredients in a weeklong program on Atkins totaled $99.89 and on South Beach $91.28, almost double the norm.

Analyzing the obesity rates, according to the National Health Interview Study, reveals some shocking differences in the rates of our most correctable health dilemma: 26% of those whose income is less than $17,000 are obese compared to 18% for those individuals making over $67,000 per year. Obesity is defined as 30 pounds or more over overweight.

Sugar, fat and grains are our cheapest foods, and those are exactly the food types that these low carb diets want us to eliminate or reduce significantly. In fact the new recommendations from the Institutes of Medicine last December reinforce this thinking, as they dropped the current Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA) for carbohydrates from 300 grams a day to 130 grams a day, less than half. Protein, in particular fish, chicken and meats cost more than pasta and rice -- so what can an average person, who still wants to keep close to their budget of $59 a week do?

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