Al Sicherman, food and humor columnist for the Minneapolis Star Tribune, shares the secrets of "low-fat" and "reduced fat" labelling.
The definitions set out by the government are fairly clear:
Fat-free: Less than 1/2 gram of fat per serving.
Lowfat: 3 grams of fat or less per serving.
"Less fat" or "Reduced fat": The product has 25% less fat than a comparable food.
Let's look at how these definitions play out in actual product labelling.
Fat-free is simple: Less than 1/2 gram of fat per serving, period. The low-fat definition of "3 grams or less" seems clear, but unfortunately it applies pretty inflexibly to every kind of food. So, a lowfat salad dressing with 3 grams of fat might have 5% of the fat of other salad dressings (usually 12-14 grams per serving), where a lowfat cereal with 3 grams of fat might have 3 times the fat of a normal cereal, because most cereal contain less than 1 gram of fat per serving).
"Less-fat" and "Reduced fat" are a bit sketchier. "25% less than a comparable food" is the rule but the stress is on "comparable food."
Milk Duds labeled "Less Fat!" might make you think that Milk Duds are healthier than they used to be. No, they just have less fat than a "comparable food." A lot of candy bars carry "Less fat" banners not because they have less fat than they used to but because, according to the fine print, they have less fat than the average of leading chocolate bars.
Pretzels normally have almost no fat at all. Pretzels dipped in cheese powder might be high in fat for pretzels (5 grams per ounce), but they can carry a less-fat label if they compare themselves to potato chips (at 10 grams of fat per ounce).
It's almost like a bag of potato chips claiming to have less fat than a stick of butter!
Look at two Weight Watchers frozen desserts: Chocolate Mocha Pie with Fudge Sauce and Mississippi Mud Pie both claim to have less fat than "Regular Desserts." What are "Regular Desserts?" Apparently you can make up whatever you want.
Packaged Meals are allowed to be labelled "Low Fat" if they have less than 3 grams of fat per 100 grams of total weight. So how does a packaged meal with crackers, sausage, cheese, a tiny candy bar weighing altogether about 100 grams and totalling 9 grams of fat get labeled "Low Fat"? By counting in the weight of the drink pouch. It weighs twice as much as all the food together and has no fat.
On that basis you could package a steak dinner - 9 oz. sirloin steak with half a cup of mashed potatoes and butter - about 25 grams of fat, and add a 20-ounce bottle of water to bring the total weight to 900 grams so the fat would be less than 3 grams per 100. Wow. Not what anybody had in mind.
Check the labels carefully, be really aware of "compared to what." Look at comparable products. Check out the actual grams of fat and consider how big a bite of the 65 grams a day in a recommended diet they amount to.
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