Into thin air: Once-ubiquitous Atkins diet has mostly vanished.

Byline: Barry Shlachter

FORT WORTH, Texas _ It sounded too good to be true.

Eat all the marbled steaks, all the fatty bacon you want, just don't add potatoes, pasta or other carbohydrate-rich foods, and you'll shed pounds.

The advice from the late Dr. Robert Atkins and his Atkins Nutritionals, which produced a range of 100 diet products, from nutrition bars to cereals, did bring some quick results. But all too many folks began cheating, and experts questioned the diet's staying power and health benefits.

The sudden popularity of low-carb diets hurt sellers of pizza, bread, pasta, doughnuts and cookies. Small independents, like Bushel 42 Pasta Co. of North Dakota, closed their doors. American Italian Pasta Co. was initially hurt but invested heavily in an Atkins-branded low-carb line, then lost millions on it.

2003 saw declines of foods naturally high in carbohydrates,…