The Change Mariner

Is Low-Carb Pizza Next?

Albany Democrat-Herald:

Pizza might be hailed as the food of the gods, one of America's best-loved meals, a hearty delectable dish that fills the stomach and seems to soothe the soul.

But to low-carb dieters, it's just a gut-busting disk of dough.

And that has caused pizza makers around the nation to wonder if the low-carb craze will force changes in one of America's best-loved foods.

They're saying, "Hey, we've got a problem here. Pizza's built on bread. It's the No. 1 enemy of the Atkinites," said Tom Boyles, senior editor of PMQ Magazine, a publication that follows the pizza industry.

Boyles has a word for those who want to avoid carbohydrates: "carbavoids."

Although industry sales haven't taken a hit yet, some pizza operators are considering offering customers low-carb pizzas.

"Pizza operators are asking themselves, 'Do I want to do this?' and they're bouncing the idea back and forth," Boyles said. "It's at that point where they're going, 'Just how far is this going to go?"'

According to the National Association of Pizzeria Operators, about 3 billion pizzas are sold each year in the United States by about 40,000 shops.

At the same time, low-carb diets like the Atkins, South Beach and Zone have gained wider popularity. A Harris Interactive poll done last summer for Novartis Consumer Health Inc. estimated that 32 million Americans were on some kind of high-protein, low-carb diet.