Carborexia is back

Carbs, carbs, carbs, what would I do without you? Like many busy Londoners, my every meal revolves around you: pastries on the go for breakfast, Pret A Manger sandwiches for lunch, then — of course — pasta for dinner. However, it seems a new war has been waged on our beloved dietary staple: zero- and low-carb foods are back — with a vengeance.

Waitrose has just launched a new “half-carb” bread called LivLife, which contains 50 per cent less carbohydrate than regular varieties: 14.6g per 100g, compared with 42.7g in a typical wholemeal loaf. Pasta is being replaced with zero-carb noodles (a 200g serving has just eight calories) and sandwich wraps with a very low-carb, high-fibre variety (Mama Lupe’s wraps contain 9g of carbs per 100g). There’s also a purely protein ice cream on our supermarket shelves, and even a cookie-maker such as Oreo is getting in on the act, with a biscuit that has just 27g of carbs per 100g.

Product developers say it’s what we consumers want and they seem to be right. Waitrose nutritionist Joanne Lunn says research showed customers were crying out for a low-carb bread: “Shoppers who have chosen to follow a low-carb or GI diet really miss easy daily bread options such as toast and sandwiches. This new loaf offers a lower-carb, higher protein and fibre alternative to a typical sliced loaf.”

According to City trader turned baker Paul Shackleton, whose company Plan Bread creates sandwiches primarily made from broccoli, low-carb is what desk-bound Londoners are looking for. “It’s not that we are anti-carb,” he says. “Carbs are great if you need a lot of energy. But if you are sitting at a desk all day, you simply don’t need them.”

While all this talk may be making carb addicts foam at the mouth, one question stands out. What are the removed or reduced carbs in these products being replaced with? Waitrose says LivLife contains less wheatflour and an increased amount of high-protein flours from soya. There are also extra linseeds, sunflower and pumpkin seeds for more flavour. Meanwhile, the maker of purely protein ice cream, Whey Hey, makes its product purely from whey protein. It is sugar and gluten-free and contains about half the calories of a tub of Häagen-Dazs.

But are all these low-carb alternatives actually healthy? Surely we need carbs in our daily diets to keep them balanced? Independent nutritionist Ian Marber says, however, that following a low-carb diet is “sensible”, and global studies have shown time and time again the benefits of a low-carb diet including weight loss, increased energy, improved concentration and mood and lower blood pressure.

Indeed, nutritionists agree that eating too many non-complex carbs can cause our blood sugar levels to spike suddenly, then drop just as quickly, resulting in increased anxiety and tiredness (post-lunch carb coma, anyone?). Low-carb foods, on the other hand, release their energy more slowly and help keep blood sugar stable — perfect for office workers who should be grazing rather than gorging throughout the day.

“The trend for low-carb, high-protein food has never really gone away,” says food futurologist Dr Morgaine Gaye. “It started with Atkins in the late Nineties and saw a brief revival with the Dukan and Paleo (or caveman) diets but now it’s back — it’s more of an ongoing trend.”

But, of course, it’s perfectly possible to eat a low-carb diet without having to buy into these new products. “The simple answer is to eat protein with every meal and snack and make it a bigger part of what you eat, say a third of what’s on your plate,” says Marber. “Make up the rest with fibrous vegetables and complex carbohydrates such as beans, chickpeas or lentils. Instead of buying half-carb bread, just eat one slice of granary and load it with chicken or another source of protein.”

While London’s carb-free devotees — such as Dukan fan the Duchess of Cambridge and no-gluten Gwyneth Paltrow — may be happy to add LivLife to their shopping baskets, I’ll reserve judgment until I know which side my bread is buttered.

PS... and one for the carboholics: say hello to the Ramen burger!

While the conscientious among you nibble the latest carb-free imitation, carboholics need not despair. It seems that for every healthier Oreo there’s a sugarier alternative, laden with starchy deliciousness to counter the pretenders.