How Fat is Hidden

Fat is hidden everywhere. Consider a steak and kidney pie. Everyone knows that pies are not exactly ‘health foods’, but have you ever thought about just how much fat this fast food contains? The pastry is almost half fat — look at your greasy fingers when you’re finished eating! Now delve inside the pie. What do you think they used to fry the onions? Oil. What did they use for the filling? The fattest beef and kidneys they could find — not lean fillet steak. And why does the sauce taste so good? Because it’s so fatty!

A huge problem that we as consumers face is the bombardment of advertising from manufacturers of food products. Here are some of the words that you see often plastered on labels and advertisements:

• ‘diet‘
• ’slimmer’s’
• ’sugar-free‘
• ‘diabetic’
• ‘lite’
• low-calorie‘
• `low-fat’

Often these descriptions are accompanied by pictures of tape measures, scales, hearts, and photographs of families glowing with health. All these words and images are extremely misleading, because they make consumers believe that the products in question are specially designed for slimmers — and therefore must be ‘healthy’. Often products are stamped with endorsements of approval from diet clubs and health organisations. My advice to you is to be extremely wary of these endorsements — in fact, to ignore them altogether.

I am not saying this to plunge any institution into disrepute. Health organisations, in particular, have been spectacularly helpful in guiding the public towards better eating habits, and their missions are crucial to community health. Why, then, do I advise you to ignore such product endorsements? Because they do not indicate that the product is ‘healthy’ insofar as its fat content is concerned. Once again, from the point of view of the X Diet, the amount of fat in the diet is of crucial concern.

‘Low fat’ is not fat free

Let me say at the outset that the term ‘fat free‘ is a very tricky one. This is because all foods contain fat, whether it is measured in hundreds of grams (for example, in a block of butter) or in microscopi_cquantities (in a potato, say). Even a humble grain of rice has a microscopic amount of fat in it, so it is strictly speaking not free of fat!

I therefore admit to fibbing a little when I say that a product is `fat free‘. But, for the purposes of the X Diet, I have taken ‘fat free‘ to mean less than 3 g of fat per 100 g of product.

Here is a fine example of how consumers are misled. By South African standards, ‘full-cream‘ cheese contains 30 percent fat, so anything that contains less than this can legitimately be described as low fat’. But how can a square of, say, slimmer’s cheese that is 29 percent pure fat be regarded as being `low‘ in fat? Certainly, that cheese might contain less fat than ordinary cheddar, but only a percentage point or two! And what difference is that percentage point going to make in chiselling the excess flab from your body? None at all!

Please realise that it is legal for manufacturers of fatty foods to claim that their products are low fat’. But, in essence, all this really means is that that product, whether it’s a tub of cream cheese, a packet of crisps or a box of biscuits, contains less fat than the original product. This knowledge is the foundation of your ‘wising-up’ process as a consumer.

For example, in the United States, a product can be described as low fat’ if it contains 15 percent less fat than the original product. In a well-known case, an ice-cream company wanted to market a low-fat version of their product. But they knew that if they removed 15 percent of the fat, the ice cream wouldn’t taste as good. They overcame this problem by reformulating the original ice cream and adding 15 percent more fat to the recipe. The old recipe could now legally be described as low fat’ — but only because it was 15 percent less fatty than the new recipe!

Another example. Think of the many ‘diet‘ and ‘lite’ salad dressings, cream dressings and mayonnaises that cram the supermarket shelves. These are far from innocuous. Read the labels carefully, and you will see that they do contain oil and quite a lot of it too. I can liken this situation to someone who is stone broke going into an expensive boutique and spending R2500,00 — on the grounds that everything is marked down 50 percent. Yes, the prices are now half what they normally are, but they are still much more than that person can afford!

Now you will begin to understand the extent of the bad news: fats tend to lurk in even the most unlikely places. The answer, of course, is to become a vigilant label-reader, and to check the fat content of every product you buy. The good news is that there is a wonderful variety of tasty fat-free products available on supermarket shelves — you just need to know how to find them.

Now for some detailed advice about specific fats that should be avoided completely.

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