You’re a freshmen in college and you are worried about packing on the freshman 15. So many different foods both good and bad are so easily accessible. With unlimited ice cream at the cafeteria, unlimited pizza, and fries, and nobody is there to remind you to stop snacking late at night, why wouldn’t you snack? Packing on these extra calories is easier than it ever was before. Have you found your self buying the “light” versions of food in effort to consume less fat or less calories? Well if you buy Lay’s and Pringles chips or even crackers and some ice cream, It might be a good idea to check the label before jumping straight to any conclusions.
The controversial topic of a substance called Olestra (marketed under the brand name “olean”) has been an issue since to 1968 and still continues to create debates all around the globe today. Olestra is an additive originally discovered by accident. Scientists found that this substance tasted like fat, but could not be digested by the stomach or any other organs, meaning olestra didn’t add calories or fat to the body! In the beginning, it was both a food company’s and a customers dream come true: an additive with an appealing taste without any extra weight gain. But as your probably thinking already, something like that…was too good to be true.
The side effects to this include cramping, abdominal pain, anal leakage, intense diarrhea and can interfere with the body’s ability to regulate what it eats, resulting in overeating…leading to WEIGHT GAIN (freshman 15, here we come). Many researchers suspect that fake fats actually mess with our body’s ability to digest and metabolize food, making us more likely to retain weight from what we eat, so when our body tells us that something is fatty, but no calories arrive (like with fat substitutes- olestra) our bodies get confused. This confusion can make the body stop preparing to digest fatty food when it does come.
But how does this apply to the food we eat today? Here are the list for specific chips to watch out for:
Lay’s Light KC Masterpiece BBQ
Doritos Light Nacho Cheese
Ruffles Light Original Ruffles
Light Cheddar & Sour Cream
Tostitos Light Restaurant Style
Fat-Free Bar-B-Q Pringles
Fat-Free Sour Cream
Onion Pringles
Olestra can also be found in corn chips, cheese puffs, crackers, doughnuts, pastries, pies, cakes, cookies, ice cream, French fries, fried chicken, fried fish, onion rings, margarines and cheeses. So, Freshman, trying to keep off that “freshman 15”, next time you are at the grocery store, remember to check the label for olestra/olean and remember that the decision regarding olestra, resides with you- the customer, and that YOU are in charge of what you put into your body!