Understanding "Low-Fat"

Have you ever searched the word "low-fat" on Pinterest or any recipe sharing site? 
It's actually pretty depressing sometimes.

Images come up for "low-fat pizza" (dripping with cheese), "low-fat baked ziti" (again, with the cheese) and "low-fat cheesecake" (that's just silly). 

Many people label things as being "low-fat" without truly understanding what that means. 

According to the FDA, in order for something to be labelled as "low-fat", it needs to have 3 grams or less per 100 g. serving in a meal or main dish, and 3 grams or less per recommended serving size for snacks or other foods. 

Now let's go back to those claims of "low-fat" cheesecakes.  Are they possible?  Technically yes.  Some companies do infact produce nearly fat-free cream cheeses that one could use to make the cake (assuming you refrain from adding any eggs, cream, or any other fatty ingredient traditionally used in cheesecakes).  The crust again poses a problem - a typical cheesecake crust is made with crushed graham wafers and melted butter.  I checked out the one recipe that I came across and while it did call for low-fat sour cream, and fat-free cream cheese, it was still 11 grams of fat per serving, 7 of which were saturated fats. 

If you live in Canada, you may be familiar with the Health Check program.  The Heart and Stroke foundation awards their endorsement to certain foods and dishes that meet their healthy standards.  However, for someone who is on a medically-mandated low-fat diet, the presence of the Health Check logo doesn't mean it's a free pass to eat it.  According to their nutritional criteria, a main dish may have as many as 20 grams of fat in it and still receive a passing grade.  For someone suffering from sympomatic gallstones, that's anywhere from 2 to 4 times the amount of fat that they can tolerate in one meal. 

Save a select few vegetables and fruits, produce is naturally fat-free.  While it takes all sorts of manufacturing voodoo and scientific tampering to make some things fat-free (like fat-free butter-like spreads), you can grow a carrot in your yard and eat it fresh from the ground without worrying about calculating nutritional content or worrying about weird additives. 

Many people who have had a restricted diet for a prolonged time do venture into the world of reduced-fat products, and there's nothing wrong with that - it's a wonderful aide.  But often it's easy to fill up on 'junk' simply because it's fat free.  I always laugh when I see candy or jello packs that are labelled "fat-free".  Of course they are!  They're almost completely sugar!  Doctors regularly end up treating people with gallstones for diabetes a few months down the road because foods that are fat-free often ramp up the sugar content to compensate for the lost flavor.  This goes the same for salt.  Many of the reduced-fat foods that you can buy are heavily processed and contain a large amount of salts, and it's hard not to justify everything you eat by saying, "well, at least it's fat-free!" 

While some recipes may claim to be low-fat, they aren't. 
While some meals may have a Health Check sign, they can still contain a large amount of fats.
And while that bag of fat-free snacks may meet one health criteria, it's important to remember that there's more than one nutrient you need to worry about!

Mrs. VanderLeek