By Peggy O'Farrell
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Tristate carbo-phobes have more options than ever when they head to the supermarket, health food store or restaurant.

Billi Johnson poses with a chef salad in front of her pantry that is loaded with low-carb foods. Johnson has lost 50 pounds on a low-carbohydrate diet. (Brandi Stafford photo) | ZOOM |

Dr. Robert Atkins spawned a multi-billion dollar industry in 1972 when he dreamed up his bacon, cheese and butter weight-loss plan and published Dr. Atkins' Diet Revolution.

Now food manufacturers are tweaking their recipes for beer, snack bars, breads, salad dressings and sauces and even ice cream until they're Atkins-friendly. And local restaurants are adding low-carb entrees to their menus in response to the low-carb craze.

Cincinnati's own Busken Bakery has entered the low-carb market: Last month, the Hyde Park-based chain introduced two flavors of low-carb bread. The white bread has 6 carbs per slice, while the grain bread has 5.5 carbs per slice, says production manager Tom Rinear.

A low-carb cookie and muffin should be introduced by the end of this month, and a low-carb bagel is "in the planning stages," Rinear says.

So far, the new products add up to a lot of dough.

"In the last 30 days we've sold 2,500 loaves of the low-carb bread," Rinear says. "That's more than we sell of our butter crust bread."

LowCarbiz, a Denver newsletter covering the low-carb industry, estimates sales of food products, books and diet centers at $15 billion annually.

Since 2001, some 800 new products claiming to be low- or no-carb have been introduced to the market, according to Productscan, a marketing research company in Naples, N.Y. On average, three new low-carb products have been introduced every day this year, the company estimates.

Those include nutrition bars, ice cream products, pizzas, meal replacement shakes, cake mixes, cookies, soup, chocolate candies and even dog food.

Restaurants are also chowing down on the trend.

A big, juicy steak - hold the rolls and baked potato - has always been an option for low-carb dieters.

But Don Pablo's, the Mexican restaurant chain, this month introduced low-carb margaritas and fajitas.

The margaritas use artificial sweetener - unlike sugar, it's carb-free - and lettuce replaces tortillas for the fajitas.

The Brown Dog Cafe in Blue Ash offers the "Atkins-Friendly Filet" for carb counters.

The filet is topped with crabmeat and butter, and it's accompanied by asparagus wrapped in prosciutto.

"It's one of the best-selling things we have, so much so that we're thinking of adding one or two more items to give customers a fish option or a chicken option," says restaurant owner Shawn McCoy.

McCoy has noticed in his catering business that customers who order deli buffets are eating the meats and cheeses, but skipping the breads and macaroni salads.

The menu at the Bistro at Harper's in Symmes Township sports an entire "Dinner with Dr. Atkins" section, complete with carb counts calculated by owner Jill Hanto, a registered dietitian.

"Normally what people do is they ask, do you have anything that is low-carb or no-carb. If you weren't targeting that market, you'd say, 'We can do this dish with a salad, oil and vinegar dressing on the side, hold the bread, veg du jour instead of the bread or pasta or rice,' " says manager Chris Witt. "We're capitalizing on that. I'm sure it's going to spread."

In January, Good Humor-Breyers introduced Breyers Carb-Smart ice cream in vanilla, chocolate and strawberry, along with a line of ice cream novelties under the Klondike CarbSmart brand.

Fitting items like ice cream, bread and margaritas into a low-carb lifestyle means substituting high-carb ingredients like wheat flour and sugar with more Atkins-friendly ingredients.

Busken tasted, tested and mixed its new products for nearly a year before they found the right recipe, Rinear says. Bakers replaced some of the wheat flour in the recipe with soy flour until they hit the right mix.

Good Humor-Breyers, based in Green Bay, Wis., replaced the sugar with the artificial sweetener Splenda and added polydextrose, a form of dietary fiber, says spokeswoman Lisa Piasecki.

When carb-counters figure up their carbs, they deduct sugar alcohols and dietary fiber because, though they are carbohydrates, they're not absorbed by the body, Piasecki explained.

A half-cup of CarbSmart ice cream contains 4 carbs, compared to the 13 to 17 carbs typically found in premium vanilla ice cream, according to the company.

Carb quiz

Think you know your carbs? Rank these foods from low to high carb counts:

1. Canned tomatoes (1 cup)

2. Brown-and-serve sausage link (1, cooked)

3. Chopped raw onions (1 cup)

4. Corn chips (1 ounce)

5. Canned tomato sauce (1 cup)

6. Feta cheese (1 ounce)

7. Bologna (2 slices)

8. Pecan halves (1 ounce)

9. Cauliflower (1 cup)

10. Carrots (1 raw)

• Answers at bottom

What is a carb?

Carbohydrates are organic sugars, starches and celluloses that provide quick energy. Carbs come from plant-based foods, including fruits, vegetables and grains, and include the "-ose" groups: sucrose, glucose, fructose, etc.

Web resources

•  www.lowcarbluxury.com - Has low-carb chat rooms, a restaurant guide and information for beginners.

•  www.carbsmart.com - Sells low-carb foods, including kosher items.

•  www.lowcarbeating.com - Has chat rooms, recipes and scientific research.

•  www.greenbeanz.com - Sells low-carb foods, offers advice and information.

•  www.atkins.com - Offers information from Atkins Nutritionals, which makes a range of low-carb foods, and the Atkins Center for Complimentary Medicine.

Carb quiz answers

Brown and serve sausage link (0 grams)

Feta cheese (1 gram)

Bologna (2 grams)

Tie: Pecan halves and cauliflower (5 grams)

Carrot (7 grams)

Canned tomatoes (10 grams)

Chopped onions (12 grams)

Corn chips (16 grams)

Canned tomato sauce (18 grams)

Surprised? Many processed foods - including lunch meats, snack chips and tomato sauce - have added sugar. Cheese has carbohydrates (but not many) because it comes from animals that eat high-carb diets.

Source: The U.S. Department of Agriculture.

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E-mail pofarrell@enquirer.com