PHILADELPHIA - Bread is back - especially if it's whole grain.

Potato and pasta sales are up, too.

Along with the bankruptcy last weekend of Atkins Nutritionals, the renewed sales of forbidden foods are evidence that the low-carb craze is over.

In its wake, food experts said, is a lingering "carb awareness" and interest in nutrition that is driving demand for whole grains and natural foods.

"Whole grain is a huge phenomenon in bread products right now," said Nan Redmond, communications director for Pepperidge Farm, a division of Camden, N.J.-based Campbell Soup Co. Later this month, the company will start selling whole-grain Goldfish, followed by whole-grain cinnamon and cinnamon-raisin breads in September.

Low-carbohydrate diets such as Atkins favor meat, eggs and green vegetables over white bread, pasta and fruit.

Food producers who were cast aside while consumers experimented with bacon and eggs are cheering the change. "We're on the comeback," said Luke Marano, chairman of Philadelphia Macaroni Co.

It is possible, some experts said, that America's notoriously faddish approach to dieting may be giving way to a more reasoned attitude.

"I think consumers are sort of burning out or are skeptical of `fad' diets and are beginning to understand that the most sensible way to long-term weight control is to balance," said Bob Goldin, executive vice president of Technomic, a food-industry research firm in Chicago.

Harry Balzer, vice president of NPD Group, a marketing-information company in Port Washington, N.Y., said he thought the lesson from the low-carb era was that people liked to try new stuff.

"I think the legacy of this is that Americans aren't looking for the way to lose weight or the way to eat better," he said. "What they're looking for is the "new way to lose weight or eat better."

Marcia Mogelonsky, senior research analyst at market researchers Mintel International, sees another fad on the horizon, but doubts it will take off in the United States until someone simplifies it. The glycemic index diet, based on how foods affect blood-sugar levels, is popular in England. The drawback: "You need a Ph.D. in math to figure out how many points you need."

Experts say some low-carb foods will survive, just like low-fat and low-salt foods. Kraft is betting that its 29 products based on the South Beach Diet, which eschews some of the same foods as Atkins, will be among them. It expects the line to bring in more than $100 million this year. On the other hand, it has stopped producing some CarbWell cookies, cereals and cereal bars.

People who track food trends say low-carb dieting peaked in early 2004.

Opinion Dynamics Corp. found that the number of people who" say they are on a low-carb diet has not changed much: It was about 14 percent in spring 2004 and 13 percent last month. What has changed is the way the "dieters" are eating.

Back in 2004, for example, more than 40 percent of low-carb dieters said they rarely or never ate potatoes.

Now, 20 percent say that. The percentage of dieters who occasionally eat pasta rose from 46 percent in 2004 to 67 percent this year.

What may have done Atkins in, aside from vigorous competition from some major corporations, is that many people were never looking for low-carb alternatives to high-carb foods, said Larry Shiman, Opinion Dynamics' vice president.

Plus, it is no surprise that most people cannot stick to a highly restrictive diet. All this is good news for the purveyors of high-carb foods.

According to Information Resources, sales of pasta have been higher than in the previous year for the last three quarters. Bread sales have been rising slowly for the last year. Meanwhile, sales of breakfast meats have been falling for the last 26 weeks.

Over the last 11 months, Idaho farmers have shipped 500,000 more 50-pound sacks of potatoes than they did over that same time period last year - a 1 percent increase, said Frank Muir, president and CEO of the Idaho Potato Commission.

In the last two years, his group spent $6 million advertising the health benefits of potatoes. There was no mourning for the Atkins company in Idaho.

"I'm sure my growers were dancing in the fields," Muir said.

Pepperidge Farm's low-carb bread, introduced in May 2004, got off to a fast start, but sales during the last quarter were 11 percent below the previous 12 weeks, Redmond said. Sales of white breads were down 5.6 percent during that time period. But sales of the company's whole grain and brown breads rose 20 percent.

Meanwhile, parent company Campbell is discontinuing its low-carb soups.

Interest in nutrition is high enough that some stores now have "Ask the Nutritionist" days, he said. Convenience foods such as bagged salads and vegetables or sliced apples are selling well.