Replacing high fat foods: be careful what you substitute

Two decades ago, as a response to nutritional health recommendations to reduce dietary fat, the food industry developed various methods for decreasing the amount of fat in traditionally higher fat food products.

A range of reduced fat, low fat, and no fat alternatives to higher fat food products is now available to the consumer who is seeking to reduce the amount of fat in their diet.

There are several reasons why health agencies suggest reducing dietary fat. Per gram, fat provides 9 kcalories, more than twice as much energy as a gram of protein or carbohydrate.

Fat is readily stored in your body.

Consuming more fat than your body requires can contribute to increased stores of body fat.

Increased stores of body fat can lead to increased body weight and being overweight or obese is associated with an increased risk for several chronic diseases, such as diabetes type 2.

Over consumption of saturated fats and trans fats is associated with an increased risk of heart disease such as high blood-cholesterol levels.

A diet in which a high percentage of calories come from dietary fat may lack nutrients contained in other foods.

From a food aesthetics point of view dietary fat provides taste, texture, enjoyment and satiety for the person consuming a particular food.

The fat content of milk can be reduced simply by removing milk fat from the product.

However, the consistency, texture, and taste of many higher fat foods is negatively altered if all or too much fat is removed from the product.

For example, removing too much fat from yogurt and cheese changes the texture and may make the product less palatable.

To overcome these negative effects the food industry developed fat replacers... Link to the full article to learn more.