Soon pizza operators might offer low-carb pies

BOSTON — Pizza might be hailed as the food of the gods, one of America's best-loved meals, a hearty delectable dish that fills the stomach and seems to soothe the soul.

But to low-carb dieters, it's just a gut-busting disk of dough.

And that has caused pizza makers around the nation to wonder if the low-carb craze will force changes in one of America's best-loved foods.

They're saying, "Hey, we've got a problem here. Pizza's built on bread. It's the No. 1 enemy of the Atkinites," said Tom Boyles, senior editor of PMQ Magazine, a publication that follows the pizza industry.

Boyles has a word for those who want to avoid carbohydrates: "carbavoids."

Although industry sales haven't taken a hit yet, some pizza operators are considering offering customers low-carb pizzas.

"Pizza operators are asking themselves, 'Do I want to do this?' and they're bouncing the idea back and forth," Boyles said. "It's at that point where they're going, 'Just how far is this going to go?' "

According to the National Association of Pizzeria Operators, about 3 billion pizzas are sold each year in the United States by about 40,000 shops.

At the same time, low-carb diets like the Atkins, South Beach and Zone have gained wider popularity. A Harris Interactive poll done last summer for Novartis Consumer Health Inc. estimated that 32 million Americans were on some kind of high-protein, low-carb diet.

Doug Ferriman, owner of Crazy Dough's Pizza Co. in Cambridge's Harvard Square, said he didn't think low-carb dieters would put "too much of a dent" in the pizza business, but he had clipped a recipe for low-carb dough from an industry publication and was going to try it in the spring.

"We're going to have to fiddle around with it for a while," he said.

Some local pizza shop owners and some smaller chains have already moved to meet low-carb dieters' demands.

In Columbus, Ohio, Donatos Pizzeria has announced it will roll out a pizza with a low-carb crust in its 182 outlets. Spokesman Tom Santor said the pizza dough, made out of soy protein and other ingredients, "tastes fabulous."

In Louisville, Ky., Bearno's Pizza, a small chain, offers a crustless pizza on the usual circular baking pan.