Fake food frenzy.Just what the world needs--another fat substitute fat substitute, substance used to replace dietary fat in the manufacture of foods. Fat substitutes are made in a variety of ways, mostly by manipulating natural food products such as egg whites, whey, and oats. Fat substitutes try to mimic the texture and flavor of fat while providing fewer calories and less metabolizable fat. The dietary consequences of consuming fat substitutes are under scrutiny. that can cause nausea and cramps heat cramp spasm with pain, weak pulse, and dilated pupils; seen in workers in intense heat. recumbency cramps CRAMPS - Combined Rotation And Multiple-Pulse Spectroscopy cramping in legs and feet occurring while resting or during light sleep. writers' cramp a muscle cramp in the hand caused by excessive use in writing. . Olestra, meet salatrim. Salatrim (also called Benefat) has been engineered to have 45 percent fewer calories than other fats. In 1994, after minimal testing in humans, manufacturer Nabisco unilaterally declared salatrim safe to eat. So far, it's only used in a few products, including SnackWell's Raisin Dips, Hershey's Reduced Fat Baking Chips, and Entenmann's Light Fat-Free Chocolatey Chip Cookies. But before you rush out to fill your cupboard, consider this: In Nabisco's own studies, people who ate even the smallest amount of salatrim tested (30 grams a day--the equivalent of six 1.5-ounce packs of Raisin Dips) had significantly higher rates of nausea and cramps than people who were given a (lookalike but salatrim-free) placebo. But no one required medical care, Nabisco assures us. Thanks a lot. And the company didn't bother to test salatrim on older people or children. More troubling, there's no way to tell from the skimpy research if there is a safe level of salatrim--one that doesn't cause cramps and nausea. And unlike Procter & Gamble's fake fat olestra (Olean Olean (ō`lēăn'), city (1990 pop. 16,946), Cattaraugus co., W N.Y., on the Allegheny River near the Pa. line; settled 1804, inc. 1893. The city formerly had an oil-based economy related to nearby oil wells; manufactures still include turbines and compressors for the oil industry as well as electrical items, cutlery, and dairy), salatrim carries no label warning about potential discomfort. (Speaking of olestra, in June, after 9,000 adverse-reaction reports had been received--a record for a food additive--a Food and Drug Administration advisory committee expressed little concern about the loss of potentially beneficial carotenoids 1. any of a group of red, orange, or yellow pigmented polyisoprenoid hydrocarbons synthesized by prokaryotes and higher plants and concentrating in animal fat when eaten; examples are ß-carotene, lycopene, and xanthophyll. 2. marked by yellow color. provitamin A carotenoids and the GI problems caused by olestra.) When the FDA let salatrim slip into the food supply, it once again failed consumers. The Center for Science in the Public Interest, the consumer group that publishes Nutrition Action Healthletter, has filed a complaint with the FDA, pointing out the troubling results of Nabisco's inadequate testing and asking that salatrim be taken off the market. Olestra and salatrim are part of a bizarre new trend. One (olestra) is an indigestible fat; the other (salatrim) is a partially digestible one. Food manufacturers are also using partially digestible sugar alcohols like sorbitol sorbitol /sor·bi·tol/ (sor´bi-tol) a six-carbon sugar alcohol from a variety of fruits, found in lens deposits in diabetes mellitus. A pharmaceutical preparation is used as a sweetening agent and osmotic laxative, and in drugs as a tablet excipient, humectant, and stabilizer., mannitol mannitol /man·ni·tol/ (man´i-tol) a sugar alcohol formed by reduction of mannose or fructose and widely distributed in plants and fungi; an osmotic diuretic used to prevent and treat acute renal failure, to promote excretion of toxic substances, to reduce cerebral edema or elevated intracranial or intraocular pressure, and to prevent hemolysis during transurethral surgical procedures., and xylitol xylitol /xy·li·tol/ (zi´li-tol) a five-carbon sugar alcohol derived from xylose and as sweet as sucrose; used as a noncariogenic sweetener and also as a sugar substitute in diabetic diets. xy·li·tol (z, which can cause diarrhea. And they're adding indigestible gums and cellulose derivatives to foods as emulsifiers emulsifier /emul·si·fi·er/ (e-mul´si-fi?er) an agent used to produce an emulsion. e·mul·si·fi·er (  -m l and fat substitutes. Needless to say, no one has looked at what happens to people who eat more than one of these additives on the same day. Food is supposed to nourish us. How ironic that, at a time when many people are going hungry, companies are converting nutrient-rich crops into indigestible goo. And calorie-conscious consumers are choosing foods based on their indigestibility. |
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