Food manufacturers are making it easier for you to have your cake and eat it, too—and your cheeses, chips, chocolate, cookies, ice cream, salad dressings, and various other foods that are now available in lower fat versions.

These products can help you reduce your fat intake to recommended levels while allowing you to enjoy foods traditionally high in fat. A diet high in fat can contribute to heart disease and some forms of cancer and, because fats are calorie-dense, to excessive body weight.

A host of fat substitutes that replace most, if not all, of the fat in a food, make these lower fat foods possible. Most of these fat replacers are ingredients already approved by the FDA for other uses in food. For instance, starches and gums are approved as thickeners and stabilizers. The perfect fat replacer is one that contributes everything fat does in a food but without the calories, saturated fat, and cholesterol.

As a food ingredient, fat is important in food preparation and consumption because it gives taste, consistency, stability, and palatability to foods and helps us feel full so we stop eating.

But we need to limit the fat we eat because fat is linked to heart disease, cancer, and obesity. Limit total fat intake to no more than 30 percent of calories and saturated fat to no more than 10 percent. Limit cholesterol intake to no more than 300 milligrams a day. Saturated fat and cholesterol help form plaque, which clogs arteries, leading to heart disease.

More consumers are shopping for “reduced fat” or “light” food products. Manufacturers are responding by adding more reduced-fat foods to their product lines. Fat replacers can help reduce a food's fat and calorie levels while maintaining desirable qualities fat brings to food, such as “mouth feel,” texture and flavor. Under FDA regulations, fat replacers usually fall into one of two categories: food additives or “generally recognized as safe” (GRAS) substances. Each has its own regulations.

Food additives must be evaluated for safety and approved by FDA before they can be marketed. They include substances with no proven track record of safety.

Among GRAS substances used as fat replacers are cellulose gel, dextrins, guar gum, and gum arabic.

Fat replacers may be carbohydrate-, protein- or fat-based substances. The first to hit the market used carbohydrate as the main ingredient. Some carbohydrate-based fat replacers are now used to reduce a food's calorie content.

Protein-based fat substitutes came along in the early 1990s. These and fat-based replacers were designed specifically to replace fat in foods.

Another type of protein-based fat replacers, called protein blends, combine animal or vegetable protein, gums, food starch, and water. They are made with FDA-approved ingredients and are used in frozen desserts and baked goods.

Reducing Dietary Fat

Can these fat replacers help you make positive dietary changes? Can they help those who are overweight lose weight?

It may be too early to say. Still, reduced fat foods appear to be an important part of a fat-reduction diet. Avoiding meats and giving up fats as flavorings (for example, eating bread without butter or margarine) are among the most difficult practices to adopt.

In using reduced-fat foods, you need to realize that fat-free does not mean calorie-free. The calories lost in removing regular fat from a food can be regained through sugars added for palatability, as well as fat replacers, many of which provide calories, too.

Used properly, fat replacers can improve your diet, but you must add variety to ensure a healthy intake. PE

Paula Kurtzweil Walter is a former member of FDA's public affairs staff.

ACTION: Discover the best method to reduce the fat intake in your diet.