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Show NutraFat could be better than NutraSweet By DENNIS fUNKAMP Consumer Information Writer Utah SUte University Forget NutraSweet, what we really need is NutraFat. I can handle hand-le diet cola, light beer, sugar reduced re-duced jelly, decaf coffee and even an occasional salad bar, but there really is no substitute for french fries or potato chips or corn chips. It is amazing that so many diet products have been geared toward reduced sugar when it is fat that is the biggest calorie carrier. Gram for gram, fats and oils have more than twice the calorie content of sugar. Sugar is 4 calories per gram while fat is 9 calories per gram. I wouldn't touch the issue of health and cholesterol with a 10-foot 10-foot corndog, but it isn't hard to see that most of the advertising regarding regard-ing fat centers on fat switching, rather than fat reduction. "No cholesterol" on a food label does not mean no calories. From a calorie standpoint, it really doesn't matter whether the fat in the food is saturated, hydrogenated or polyunsaturated. One of the problems with trying to reduce fat is that it is often essential essen-tial to the cooking process. With out fat, cookies and potato chips don't snap and pie crusts and biscuits bis-cuits aren't flakey. Although there is no product called cal-led NutraFat yet, food scientists have been working on fat substitutes. substi-tutes. One of the methods has been to create a fat that is not metabolized metabol-ized by the body. One currently being tested is called olestra. Similar to some artificial sweetener research, the idea is to rearrange the molecules in the fat so that the body does not recognize it. Thus, the fat passes through the body without being absorbed. Although this may sound like a wonderfully simple idea, Dr. Georgia Geor-gia Lauritzen, nutritionist in the Utah State University college of family life, says it may cause other problems. She says we still don't know how this type of substance would affect the body. It might end up dragging other nutrients out of the body as it passes through. Another method for getting around the use of oil is to create new food technology. According to Bob Olsen, food scientist in the USU college of family life, one of the new methods used on snack foods is puffing. Similar to puffed wheat breakfast cereal, these snacks are made crunchy without the use of frying. He says wheat, corn, potato or rice pellets are cooked with a hot blast of air to get them to puff up similar to a hot air popcorn popper. They are then coated with different flavors depending on the type of snack. |