FYI: Fat replacer Olestra has been a controversial food additive since its introduction in 1996. Why?

After 30 years of saying margarine (hydrogenated fat) is better than butter (saturated fat), medical experts and health professionals have decided it's actually the other way round. To add to the confusion is the option of Olestra (fat replacer). It was first introduced as a food additive in 1996 by Frito Lay in its WOW brand crisps.

Olestra was filed by Proctor & Gamble (P&G) as a drug with the United States Food and Drug Administration in 1975. It failed to prove its ability to lower blood cholesterol levels by at least 15 per cent so P&G resubmitted the petition in the food-additive category.

Olestra is a sucrose polyester chemically synthesised from vegetable oil. It has a similar mouth feel to natural fat but, on a molecular level, its fatty acid chains do not break off and are therefore too big to be absorbed through the stomach wall. In other words, it leaves the body before it has a chance to grab on to your love handles.

While both saturated fats and trans fats have been associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, Olestra is better known for a much less threatening but potentially embarrassing condition: diarrhoea. Until 2003, people who picked up a tube of Pringles or bag of Doritos 'Light' at the supermarket would see this labelling: 'This product contains Olestra. Olestra may cause abdominal cramping and loose stools.'

A few years ago, the Centre for Science in the Public Interest (which was the agency that first gave margarine the thumbs-up then the thumbs-down) published an article raising concern over gastrointestinal disturbances caused by Olestra. In it was presented the worrying hypothetical scenario in which the 'driver of a giant 18-wheeler [is] barrelling down the highway at 70 miles

per hour [113km/h] when he gets hit with a bout of faecal urgency'.