Provisionary

Janetslowcarbfoods.com

By most accounts, low-carb bread is an oxymoron. It's as incomprehensible to some non-Atkins dieters as butter without the dairy. Oops. We already have that. Okay, as a hamburger without the meat. On second thought, strike that one too.

Though a low-carb carb seems to cancel itself out, the truth is, we embraced such contradictory foodstuffs long ago. In addition to your buttery spreads and imitation meats, beer without alcohol, milk with no lactose and coffee without the caffeine all exist, some as grocery-store staples, even though they lack the very things that characterize them. Like those who chose ice cream over frozen yogurt in the 80s, some of us feel that eating a food depleted of what makes it so good to begin with is pointless. If you can't eat the thing without removing its essence, is there any point to eating it at all?

Judging by the enthusiasm that has met companies large and small in the low-carb market (to the tune of $15 billion last year), the answer is a resounding yes. A local contender is Queens-based Janet's Low Carb Bread. A former Atkins dieter and one-time Wall Street consultant, Janet "Low Carb Bread" Kamin has done quite well for herself, producing one of the finer specimens of mass-produced low carb bread out there.

Kamin, who "never baked" and "never cooked" before starting her business, was inspired by a July 2002 New York Times article that sanctioned the low-carb diet. "In that moment I knew that if the 20 million people who read the Atkins book all came out of the closet, they will start demanding food," says a breathless Kamin. She created a loaf in her kitchen and test-marketed it with excellent results at her local diner (signs on tables advertise: "I'm eating bread and still losing weight!"). Kamin moved from her home to a restaurant kitchen, and in no less than a year was running a full-fledged operation from her own factory in Maspeth, Queens, which churns out whole wheat, seven grain and rye breads six days a week for hundreds of supermarkets, delis and diners.

When I visited the factory, a sterile warehouse on a featureless block, the smell in the air was that of real bread baking. When I walked in and saw shiny brown loaves lined up on baking trays, they looked like the real thing, too. Kamin cut me a slice. The look of the bread is appetizing?the crust is thick, the inside fluffy and porous. I took a bite and chewed. And chewed and chewed. To my surprise, it tasted good?nutty, if not a little salty?though wheat gluten, the first ingredient, gives it an oddly rubbery texture.

At three net carbs a slice, which in Atkins-speak is carbohydrates minus the fiber (regular bread has anywhere from 15 to 25 net carbs), the tradeoff to dieters may be better than no bread at all. Although the mentality of deprivation that pervades the low-carb industry is the greatest irony here?the only ones who have denied the dieters the foods that they love are the dieters themselves?it doesn't change the fact that low-carb food sales are projected to at least double in 2004.

"I don't like bread that much," Kamin admits. "But when I had the first recipe that was edible, I can't explain how glorious it was to have bread. I ate sandwiches for breakfast, lunch and dinner."

[gabi@nypress.com](mailto:gabi@nypress.com)