On the Lips, Never on the Hips

Fake fat to fool the body? At last, the search for the quintessential fat substitute may be at an end. The Food and Drug Administration has approved the controversial olestra, a synthetic oil that supposedly has the taste and texture of fat but no actual fat or calories. Consumers will get their first taste of it in snack foods soon.

Visions of once-forbidden snacks dancing in your head? Be forewarned that some bodies may not take to olestra. The FDA is requiring packages of foods using the substance to bear a warning of possible side effects, which include abdominal cramping, diarrhea-like symptoms and bodily depletion of important nutrients. These alone could kill your appetite.

Still, olestra met the safety standards required by law for all new food additives. FDA Commissioner David A. Kessler explained that the side effects are real for some people but are not believed to be “medically significant. Otherwise we would not have approved it.” But the FDA has limited its use to salty snack foods for now.

For 25 years Proctor & Gamble has worked to develop olestra, which has the trade name Olean. Because its molecular structure is too large and tightly packed for digestion, the product passes through the body without being absorbed. As a condition of FDA approval, P&G; agreed to study the consumption and long-term effects of olestra.

Development of this ingredient says a lot about Americans’ schizophrenic attitude toward food: gluttonous instincts mixed with weight obsession. We want the crunch, the munch and the sweet sensation. We don’t want what naturally comes with it. Moderation may be the key to a successful diet, but that cannot be packaged and sold. Instead we see moderation as deprivation. So we have low-fat, no-fat and fat-free. We buy fat-free cookies and then eat the whole box. We order a pepperoni pizza--and a diet drink.

The market will be the ultimate judge of olestra. There’s a potential $1-billion business for P&G.; Is this the stuff of dreams? Or of pipe dreams?