08:11 AM CDT on Tuesday, May 16, 2006

By Kelly Hawes / Galveston County Daily News

GALVESTON — For years, Arthur Agatston says, experts offered conflicting advice about what constituted a healthy diet.

“This led people to think there was really a conspiracy to keep people confused,” he said.

Now, he says, the debate is over.

Agatston says the experts agree that what people need in their diets are the right fats and the right carbohydrates, along with plenty of fiber and lean protein.

“This is really not going to change,” he said. “It’s really set in stone.”

Agatston, whose book “The South Beach Diet” reached No. 1 on the New York Times bestseller list, was the featured speaker at the fourth annual luncheon marking women’s health week at the University of Texas Medical Branch.

Between appearances Monday, he signed copies of his latest offering, “The South Beach Diet Quick and Easy Cookbook,” a compilation of recipes that can be made in 30 minutes or less.

Abbey Berenson, director of the sponsoring Center for Interdisciplinary Research in Women’s Health, said the audience for Monday’s luncheon was the largest ever for the annual event.

“I’m sure that has to do with our speaker,” she said.

Berenson noted that the meal served to Agatston’s audience had come directly from his book.

“It’s intended to show that food can be healthy and still be good,” she said.

Not everyone is a fan of Agatston’s book. Some critics say it is designed more to appeal to America’s love affair with rich foods than to lead people toward healthier diets.

Agatston told Monday’s audience he really didn’t set out to develop a weight-loss program.

“The diet thing happened somewhat accidentally when I was watching my patients and the nation getting fatter on low-fat diets,” he said.

His goal, he said, was to develop a diet that would help his heart patients to eat healthily. It was pure happenstance, he said, that the diet also helped people to lose weight.

To hear Agatston tell it, the problems with today’s diets really began with the advent of agriculture. Humans were much healthier, he said, when they were hunters and gatherers traveling in small tribes, gathering fruits and vegetables and hunting big game.

The real downfall of the American diet, he said, came with the development of processed carbohydrates and saturated or trans-fats.

“We started with trans-fats without really knowing what the effect would be,” Agatston said.

Those changes in diet, combined with decreased exercise, have led to a nationwide rise in obesity.

“You can just see the country getting fatter and fatter,” he said.

The real enemy, he said, is fast food.

“To the degree we’re exporting fast food, we’re also exporting this problem to the rest of the world,” he said, adding that the epidemic of diabetes and obesity extends to schoolchildren.

“Studies have shown that overweight teenagers are overweight and overfed, but literally malnourished,” he said.

Agatston noted a study in Miami that had found children classifying soft drinks and chips as breakfast food.

“It wasn’t bad aptitude,” he said. “That’s what they were actually eating.”

In response, his clinic had launched a program seeking to foster better eating habits.

“We’re trying to introduce kids to fruits and vegetables,” he said.

Looking at the issue nationally, the author said he saw reason for optimism: “Even McDonald’s has salads now.”

He felt that the way to bring healthier foods to the market is for consumers to demand them, saying: “To the degree there’s a demand, the restaurant and food industry will respond.”

Asked whether he would encourage youngsters to drink diet soda, Agatston said he’d rather see them drink water but, if the choice is between a diet drink and a regular drink, he said, he’d go with the diet drink.

Among Agatston’s critics is Joel Fuhrman, himself a family physician.

Fuhrman did not question all of Agatston’s advice but said his diet relied too much on meat and other fat foods.

“That’s what these guys do,” he said. “They give lip service to a healthy diet, but then they allow animal products at every single meal.”

Nutrition experts are trying to convince Americans to eat a lot more fruits and vegetables and a lot less meat, he said.

The average American diet contains about 40 percent animal products, but the first phase of the South Beach diet contains 60 percent, Fuhrman said.

“It should be closer to 10 to 20 percent,” he claimed. “It should be calling for meat every other night or once a day instead of three times a day.”

Fuhrman, of course, has his own book, titled “Eat to Live.” He bristles, though, at the idea that his views simply represent those of a competing author.

“My book has 1,500 medical references in it,” he said. “His has practically none.”

And he says Agatston’s book contains some really bad advice: “He actually says in there that you’re better off eating ice cream than potatoes.”