A product that contains little or no substance with a limited intake amount is labeled as a "low..." product, thus giving rise to low-fat butter, low-fat cheese, and low-tar cigarettes. However, simply removing the inherent substances from a product is not enough. Imagine, if cheese, butter, or sausage lacked the typical smooth, rich, and greasy texture, would you still enjoy it? Customers would surely abandon the product for its "inauthentic mouthfeel."
Therefore, additives are needed! They can maintain the original flavor of the food without the unwanted calories, fat, or cholesterol. This is indeed a demanding requirement for food manufacturing experts. However, professionals from the fields of physics, chemistry, and technology have successfully accomplished this arduous task. It is hard to believe what materials people can use to produce fat substitutes! Here are two examples. For instance, they can be extracted from tiny spheres in the compressed protein part of whey, or from starch that has been treated with hydrochloric acid and enzymes and then fully pressed by an extruder. However, these two types of fat are not suitable for frying, baking, or deep-frying. Therefore, a compound that can withstand high temperatures is needed. People have created an artificial material from sugar and fatty acids that is suitable for cooking and easy to spread.
This new invention has a beautiful name: "Olestra" (a special oil), which expresses people's expectations for its function: it is completely indigestible and thus does not lead to excess calories. "Olestra" remains unchanged after passing through the body's digestive process—and it flows out of the body, sticking to clothing and seats where one has sat. Americans call this unpleasant side effect "anal leakage"—to avoid misunderstanding, it is often translated as "leakage from the back." Later, this problem was solved—by adding other ingredients, "Olestra" solidifies with intestinal substances before leaving the body.
Consumers generally do not feel any discomfort when purchasing products that can help them stay slim. But are the efforts of these chemical experts, doctors, and weight-loss coaches really worth it? How quickly can people actually lose weight after consuming "fat substitute" substances? This question also interests the manufacturers of these substitute foods. A food industry giant, the Kraft Foods Company, conducted the following experiment. They divided rats into two groups. For two months, one group was fed a low-fat diet where some or all of the base protein was replaced by a low-calorie substance, and the other group was fed a diet with normal fat content. The final measured weight was the same in both groups, meaning the rats on the low-fat diet weighed the same as those on the normal diet. The reason is simple: the rats on the low-fat diet had to eat more to meet their body's energy requirements. A more destructive experiment was conducted in the laboratories of The Procter & Gamble Company, the producer of "Olestra." In this experiment, dogs were continuously fed a diet where fat was replaced by "Olestra" for 20 months. The result was that the dogs fed the "Olestra" diet were significantly fatter than the control dogs fed the normal diet at the end of the experiment.
The results observed in rats and dogs can also happen in humans. Children aged 2 to 5 generally do not have their food choices influenced by psychological factors, so their appetite is genuine. In another experiment, some of these children were given special food daily, in which 10% of the fat was replaced by a fat substitute. The researchers recorded the children's food intake. It was found that when the children had lunch containing the fat substitute, their appetite was significantly greater than that of the control group eating normal food. The next day, normal food was served again, and they were still allowed to eat as much as they wanted. According to the experimental records, the calories these children ate on the second day were exactly the same as those they ate on the previous day when they had the lunch containing the fat substitute.
Obviously, our metabolism is not as easily deceived as our sense of taste. When the energy we provide to our body falls short of its "experience value," the body generates an additional demand for energy. This also explains why in supermarkets, the "low..." series of products has never been able to replace other foods: the energy our body needs cannot be substituted; at best, we just have to pay more. Eating "low..." products can only reduce the amount of money in your wallet.