Low fat foods: Are they for real?

By Lovely Ranganath, Dietician, Al Zahra Hospital, Sharjah 

Many people believe that reduced-fat and fat-free foods can be had in unlimited amounts. This belief could be the result of a lack of awareness of facts. This article is written with just that in mind – to raise your awareness of such products.

Fat replacements offer an easy way to lower fat intake, while enjoying many foods that were once high in fat. As people learn more and more about the health consequences of high-fat diets, they want to lower their fat intake, but they’d rather not give up their favourite foods. As the adage goes, they want to have their cake and eat it, too – both figuratively and literally. 

Food chemists have been working for decades on ways to reduce the fat in foods. Juggling the needs of the human body, the taste perceptions of consumers, and the requirements of food preparation is a complex task. For the body, products must contribute little food energy, must be nontoxic and completely excreted, and must not rob the body of valuable fat-soluble nutrients. To satisfy consumers, products must be attractive, feel right in the mouth, and have the right flavour. 

Food manufacturers need a compound that remains stable while meeting a product’s requirements for temperature, moisture, and texture. That’s a tall order, but it looks as though food chemists are mastering the task. Today shoppers can select from thousands of new reduced-fat products. Many bakery goods, cheeses, frozen desserts, and other products are available that offer less than half a gram of fat in a serving.

Techniques for reducing fat 

How exactly do they achieve it? Well, some techniques for reducing food fat are quite simple. For example, manufacturers can lower fat by adding water or whipping in air. They use nonfat milk in creamy desserts and lean meats in frozen entrees. Sometimes they simply prepare the products differently. For example, fat-free potato chips are now baked instead of fried.

Many of these new products lack the sensation of richness provided by the fatty ingredients they replace. Innovative technologies are attempting to solve this problem by imitating the experience of eating fat – the creaminess as well as the taste – without the kcalories.

Fat replacements 

Several fat replacements are based on carbohydrate derivatives. One such product is maltodextrin, a carbohydrate derived from corn. When sprinkled on hot, moist foods such as baked potatoes, this product melts, providing a flavor similar to that of butter or margarine.

Most carbohydrate-based fat replacements are heat stable and can be used in baking, but not in frying. They mimic the texture and feel of fat by forming gels in foods such as margarines, frozen desserts, and salad dressings. 

Because these carbohydrate derivatives are common dietary substances, companies can ask the FDA (Food & Drug Administration) to approve them as generally recognized as safe (GRAS) substances. In fact, manufacturers have used these carbohydrate-based compounds for years as thickeners and stabilizers. The body digests and absorbs these substances, so they contribute some energy, although significantly less than fat’s 9 kcalories per gram.

Fake fat

Food manufacturers also use FDA approved fake fat in snack foods. Enzymes in the digestive tract cannot break this fake fat and hence it passes through the system unabsorbed. The artificial fat looks, feels, and tastes like dietary fat and can be used in frying, cooking, and baking. Potato chips made with fake fat deliver half the kcalories of regular chips and none of the fat. Does this sound too good to be true? It may be.

As far as the safety of this product is concerned, research on both animals and human beings supports the safety of  the product. Studies on animals have reported no evidence of either cancer or birth defects. 

Digestive distress

But some of you would have noticed the digestive distress that sometimes accompanies products prepared with fake fat consumption: cramps, gas, bloating, and diarrhea. People may experience “fecal urgency” (the immediate need for a bathroom” and “anal leakage” (resulting in stained underwear). The FDA considers these symptoms “unpleasant”, but not “medically significant”. Whether consumers will agree and accept such “annoyances” in exchange for a bag of fat-free chips with lunch remains an unanswered multimillion dollar question. 

Remember, when fat is reduced or removed from a food, the other nutrients still remain and contribute to the calorie content. Also, manufacturers may alter the amounts of the remaining ingredients. For example, corn syrup (a carbohydrate) is often increased to make up for the loss of flavour or texture that results when fat is taken out. 

Lower fat foods that aren’t lower in calorie offer the most benefit to people who are at a healthy weight and don’t need to limit calories but want to limit fat to reduce the risk of cancer or heart disease. If you are trying to lose weight, check food labels closely for total calorie content, not just the fat content.

Fat-free foods and weight loss

Will people become slimmer by munching on chips and cookies made with artificial fats? Or will they simply feel free to eat more chips and cookies? After all, fat-free foods still deliver kcalories. Decades ago, consumers hailed the arrival of artificial sweeteners as a weight-loss wonder, but in reality, kcalories saved by using artificial sweeteners were readily replaced by kcalories from other foods. 

Fat substitutes are not magic, of course; they cannot make people eat healthy diets. What they can do, though, is offer a low-fat alternative to the high-fat foods that bring flavour and pleasure to meals and snacks. Used wisely, they can help you achieve your dietary goals.

Ms Lovely Ranganath, Dietician, M.Sc (Food Science & Nutrition), Dip. Fitness & Nutrition, Al Zahra Hospital, Sharjah and Al Zahra Medical Centre, Dubai will be regularly writing on Diet and Nutrition on womenone.org.