August 11, 2005

TIMES HUMOR: BOROWITZ REPORT

Free ketchup, mustard packets dominate new weight-loss program

Two days after filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, Atkins Nutritionals, Inc. said today that although its low-carb diet had lost its luster, the company was introducing what it called “a low-cash diet guaranteed to melt those pounds away.”

At Atkins headquarters, company spokesman Dalton Pankow said that the company’s financial woes had inspired the new low-cash diet, which he said was based on a very simple principle: “Essentially, once you’re on the diet, you don’t eat anything that costs money.”

As a result, Mr. Pankow explained, “The diet is low on carbs, but it is also low on protein and pretty much everything else.”

Showing a newly reconfigured Atkins food pyramid, Mr. Pankow said that dieters on the new low-cash weight-loss program would eat mainly free ketchup and mustard packets foraged from fast-food restaurants like McDonald’s and Burger King.

“And at the end of the first week, to celebrate you have a packet of relish for dessert,” Mr. Pankow added.

While dieticians studying Atkins’ newest fad diet said that the low-cash regimen might help dieters lose weight in the short run, Wall Street questioned how the program could help return Atkins to financial health, since the new diet does not involve any money changing hands.

“That’s the part we’re still trying to figure out,” Mr. Pankow told reporters. “In the meantime, would any of you care for a delicious ice cube?”

Elsewhere, in his first day on the job, United Nations Ambassador John Bolton toured the U.N. building in New York to determine which 10 stories would be easiest to remove.

Andy Borowitz is a nationally syndicated humor columnist whose work can be found in Newsweek and other publications.