FAT-FREE FAT

By Anastasia Toufexis

THE BATTLE OVER OLESTRA IS FINISHED. After decades of study and deliberation, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has made its long-awaited decision on the controversial fake fat, which was featured three weeks ago on the cover of TIME. The federal agency announced last week that it was approving the use of olestra--with conditions.

The so-called fat-free fat, which passes through the digestive tract without being absorbed and thus adds no fat and no fat calories to food, can be used only in savory snacks, like potato chips, crackers and tortilla chips. The data, explains FDA Commissioner David Kessler, "demonstrate reasonable certainty of no harm in certain snack foods."

Nevertheless, the agency is requiring foods made with the synthetic compound to carry a label warning that olestra "may cause abdominal cramping and loose stools" and that it "inhibits the absorption of some vitamins and other nutrients." "There are real effects in some people," says Kessler, though he notes that the agency considers them "annoying" rather than "medically significant."

Procter & Gamble, which has trade-named its fake fat Olean, was jubilant. The company plans to have vitamin-fortified, reduced-calorie test snacks on supermarket shelves by summer. "By replacing the fat in snacks," says P&G chairman John Pepper, "Olean can help millions of Americans cut excess fat and move closer to achieving an important dietary health goal."

But critics stress potential problems. Calling olestra a "public-health time bomb," Michael Jacobson of the Center for Science in the Public Interest predicted that "it will cause everything from diarrhea to cancer, heart disease and blindness." If only there were a product that could strip the fat from the inflated claims of both sides.

--By Anastasia Toufexis