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Fat Chance

In a recipe yesterday, the following appeared:
> serve on a crusty roll (i like poppyseed) with a sprinkle of ff 
> parmesan and a bit of promise ultra nonfat margarine. enjoy! 

This is a reminder of how important it is to read the Nutritional 
Facts on labels of the food you buy and don't always believe the 
claims food sellers make.

Promise Ultra Non-Fat margarine is nearly 100 percent calories 
from fat. Really!  Look at the back and you'll see: Calories 5, 
Calories from fat 5. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to 
calculate that this stuff is basically fat. 

The problem comes from the FDA's rule that allows "rounding down".
If the serving size (no matter how small) contains 0.5 grams of fat
or less, it can be "rounded off" to zero. This allows some foods 
that are nearly full fat to be legally called "fat free".

One "serving" of Promise will only add a half a gram of fat, but I 
know people who, feeling they can use this safely since it says 
"fat free", slather five or six of "servings" on their baked potato,
then another three or four on their bread, and a few more on their 
veggies. This can yield six or more grams of fat from a so-called 
"fat free" food. 

The moral: read labels carefully. Look at the serving size and see
what the percentage of calories the fat really is. 
---
Neal Pinckney <> Healing Heart Foundation <> Makaha, Hawaii <> AH6HM

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