Low fat con?

[emmielou]

Am I kidding myself by buying low-fat food?

[louise001]

Yes, you are kidding yourself. Just because something is low in fat does not mean it is low in calories so you are better having "normal" food and eating less!

[Piljim]

The last letter had a good point. Often manufacturers just substitute fat for sugar, with about the same amount of calories and a detrimental effect to the teeth. However, fat is not just a threat because of its calorific value - saturated fats are the ones you don't want, polyunsaturated are good but don't eat too much! I'm a Food Technologist developing foods with artificial sweeteners and we use soluble fibres like Litesse and polyols like Lactitol to partially replace fat and sugar (sorry for the plug - notice I didn't mention my company's name!)

[Paddy]

Maybe. Bear this in mind - 1 gm of fat has 9 calories, 1gm carbohydrates or protein is 4 calories. You need to work out what percentage of total calories come from fat.A product that is "85% fat free" could actually be providing 50% of its calories from fat! Also - as mentioned above - a lot of 'low fat' products are very high in sugar. Sugars are stored as fat quite easily by the body if they aren't burnt off quickly. Don't be fooled!