CONSUMER REPORTS: THE FACTS ABOUT FATS

This report looks at the facts about fats, and includes sections
on fat and your health, avoiding packaged fats, types of fats and
oils, trans fat, new ways to cook, eating out and eating smart,
and the fat quiz.


FAT AND YOUR HEALTH

Focusing on fat alone, nutritionists say, is no more productive
than obsessing about vitamins, cholesterol or sweeteners. Weight-
loss experts have backed away from their recent assertion that
counting grams of fat is more important than counting calories.
That strategy worked fine when it was difficult to consume excess
calories on a low-fat diet. No more. Faced with low-fat-but-high-
calorie products, we've got to go back to counting calories, says
John Foreyt, director of the Baylor College of Medicine's
Nutrition Research Clinic.

If you're concerned about your diet's contribution to your risk
of cancer, several leading epidemiologists now believe that fat
intake isn't the whole story. Even the apparent connection
between adult fat consumption and breast cancer is very shaky,
several epidemiologists say. Colon cancer appears to be the
cancer most strongly influenced by fat, and even that apparent
link may really reflect the effects of eating too much red meat
and too little fiber. In the long run, many researchers believe,
the diet most protective against cancer is one based on fruits,
vegetables, grains and beans. A diet based on fruits, vegetables,
grains and beans is most protective against cancer not only
because it is likely to be low in fat, but also because it is
high in fiber, the protective vitamins and minerals known as
antioxidants, and possibly other useful compounds (see CR's
September 1994 report "Taking Vitamins").

What hasn't changed is the strong connection between saturated
fats, high blood cholesterol and heart disease, the main reason
people have been urged to pay close attention to the amount and
the types of fats they consume. The government now recommends
that Americans get no more than 30% of their daily calories from
fat, with no more than 1/3 of that fat being saturated. Nutrition
experts CR surveyed say that less fat would be even better. Their
advice for an ideal diet: Limit total fat to 20% to 25% of
calories, with a 7% cutoff for saturated fat.

The government recommendations mean your daily fat consumption
should be no more than 67 grams for a 2,000-calorie diet. (At 9
calories per gram of fat, 67 grams equals about 600 calories.
Carbohydrates and protein carry 4 calories per gram.)
Unfortunately, exceeding the fat limit is as easy as pie. A
bologna-and-cheese sandwich with mayonnaise has about 39 grams of
fat. A half-cup serving of super-premium ice cream packs 18 grams
of fat, more than half of it saturated. A slice of apple pie has
19 grams, almost all in the crust.

Here's how to calculate your calorie budget (the calories you can
consume daily without gaining or losing weight):

Basal metabolic requirement.
Men: multiply weight in pounds by 11.
Women: multiply weight in pounds by 10.

Activity factor.
Decide which activity best describes your highest level
of regular exercise, and select the factor: sedentary
(1.40), light (1.60), moderate (1.70), strenuous (1.85).

Basal metabolic requirement x Activity factor =
Approximate daily calorie budget

To calculate your daily fat allowance, here's a mathematical
shortcut: Divide your daily calorie budget by 30. The answer will
be the approximate number of grams of fat (each fat gram has 9
calories) you can eat according to the government's
recommendations (30% of calories from fat). Many nutritionists
say you really should eat even less fat than that.


AVOIDING PACKAGED FATS

The new Nutrition Facts labels, required by the U.S. Food and
Drug Administration (FDA) on nearly all packaged foods, have
made it much easier to avoid fats in processed foods. You can use
the labels to design a low-fat diet that closely meets your daily
caloric needs, or you can use the figures as a rough guide.

Precise word definitions, issued by the FDA, also brought order
to what had become a free-for-all on food labels. Low fat now
signifies, in most cases, a product with no more than 3 grams of
fat per serving. A product with low saturated fat has no more
than 1 gram per serving and gets no more than 15% of its calories
from saturated fat. And products proclaimed as fat-free or
saturated-fat-free must have less than 1/2 gram of fat, or
saturated fat, per serving. The rules also let companies take
credit for removing some fat from foods typically loaded with it.

A reduced-fat product has at least 25% less fat than usually
found in that food. Light in fat means a food has 1/2 the fat or
1/3 the calories of its regular counterpart. Foods termed
"reduced fat" or "light in fat" can still have lots of fat:
Reduced-fat Better Cheddar crackers, for example, still contain 6
grams of fat per serving and get 36% of their calories from fat.

The FDA's glossary doesn't define such label terms as "thin" or
"smart," which suggest good-for-you but can mean just about
anything. And nutrition labels aren't required on fresh products,
including meat. As a general guideline, the lowest fat and fewest
calories are found in skinless chicken breasts, skinless turkey
breasts and pork tenderloin. "Low fat" is defined differently
when it's on a milk carton. Dairies were permitted to keep this
term for 2% milk, although in this case the product contains more
than 4.5 grams of fat per serving.


TYPES OF FATS AND OILS

"Fat" is actually a class of molecules called fatty acids:
strings of carbon atoms dotted with hydrogen atoms. The hydrogen
makes the difference. The "saturated" fat that dominates in
butter, lard and tropical oils is thoroughly saturated with
hydrogen atoms, carrying as many as the carbon atoms are
chemically able to. "Unsaturated" fats carry less than a full
complement of hydrogen. Saturated fats tend to be hard at room
temperature, and hard on your heart. Unsaturated fats tend to
remain liquid at room temperature, and are less harmful to your
health.

Are all unsaturated fats equally desirable? Opinions have varied.
Early concern about saturated fats first shifted interest to
polyunsaturated fats, which predominate in vegetable oils such as
safflower, soybean and corn. Studies had shown that
polyunsaturates reduced blood-cholesterol levels when substituted
for saturated fat.

In the 1980s, attention shifted to monounsaturated fats, found
predominantly in olive and canola oils (the difference between
polys and monos, both unsaturated, is the number of hydrogen
atoms missing from the string of carbon atoms). A research team
from Texas and California reported that monos could lower total
blood cholesterol just as well as polyunsaturates. But apparently
unlike polys, the monos didn't reduce HDLs (high-density
lipoproteins), blood compounds that reduce heart-attack risk.
That apparent difference enhanced an already good reputation.
Mediterranean populations had for generations consumed large
quantities of olive oil, and had very low rates of heart disease.
Olive-oil companies couldn't have been happier.

Further research couldn't confirm polyunsaturates' effects on
HDL. All the nutrition scientists CR queried now believe that, at
levels commonly found in the diet, monos and polys appear to have
the same effects on blood cholesterol. Since a tablespoon of any
vegetable oil has 14 grams of fat (in most, only 1 or 2 grams are
saturated fat) and 125 calories, the one you consume should make
little difference to your health. (Avoid the "tropical" vegetable
oils, with 7 to 12 grams of saturated fat per tablespoon, and
cottonseed oil, with 4 grams of saturated fat.)

When you're picking a cooking oil to use at home, base your
selection on taste. When you can, use a flavored oil, such as
sesame oil for stir-fries, extra-virgin olive oil for pasta or
walnut oil for a nutty-tasting salad dressing. The distinctive
taste lets you use very little and still get the oil's flavor. If
you need a bland-tasting oil, you might as well choose one that's
especially low in saturated fat. Canola oil is the lowest, with
safflower oil close behind.


TRANS FAT

Although food manufacturers have been forced to cut back on
saturated fat because of health concerns, they've been reluctant
to give up some of its physical properties. So they often use a
sort of hybrid oil created in a process called hydrogenation. The
result, partially hydrogenated vegetable oils, can be used in a
semisolid spread like margarine, and is better suited for deep
frying than unsaturated fats. Some of the fatty acids in
hydrogenated oils are known as trans-fatty acids, or trans fats.

Trans fat is what gives margarine, a vegetable-oil product, its
butter-like consistency. The familiar texture has helped
margarine flourish as an apparently heart-healthy alternative.
Trans fat also has become more common in baked goods and snacks.
But in 1990 Dutch researchers reported that trans fat might raise
blood cholesterol, as butter does. Trans fat's role is not yet
entirely resolved. Clinical studies haven't linked trans fats
directly to heart attacks. But there's a growing consensus among
epidemiologists that, gram for gram, trans fat increases your
blood cholesterol nearly as much as saturated fat does.

If you're concerned about your cholesterol level, stick with
margarine, but use it sparingly. Butter hasn't gotten any better.
It still has 7 grams of saturated fat per tablespoon, more than
the combined total of trans and saturated fats in a tablespoon of
stick margarine. As a rule, you'll reduce your intake of trans
fat if instead of solid margarine you use a soft, tub-style
spread that lists water or liquid vegetable oil as first
ingredient. Even better, try other spreads for your bread. Jam,
chutney and apple butter have no fat at all.

Partially hydrogenated vegetable oils are used in packaged
cookies, crackers and other baked goods to prolong shelf life.
But it takes careful label reading to detect its presence, and
often there is no way to find out. Since trans fat has harmful
effects similar to saturated fat, CR thinks the government should
require its inclusion on the label. If the ingredients list
includes "partially hydrogenated" oils, the product contains
trans fat. How much? The label won't tell you directly. But
sometimes you can tell indirectly.

If the label gives the amount of other fats (saturated,
polyunsaturated and monounsaturated), add those figures together
and subtract them from the amount of total fat. What remains
should be the approximate amount of trans fat the product
contains. For example, the nutrition label on Reduced Fat Wheat
Thins crackers lists 4 grams total fat, 0.5 grams saturated
fat, 0 grams polyunsaturated fat, 1.5 grams monounsaturated fat.
Subtracting them from the total fat content shows about 2 grams
unaccounted for. It's probably 2 grams of trans fat.

New data, just released by the U.S. Department of Agriculture
(USDA), lists several packaged foods that contain particularly
high levels of trans fat, often more trans fat than saturated
fat. Each item represents a national brand, which the agency
declines to name. For each packaged food category, the USDA gives
the number of grams of total fat, saturated fat and trans fat per
standard serving size. In most categories, the listed trans fat
content is similar to that of other brands, but not always.

SERVING TOTAL SATURATED TRANS
PRODUCT SIZE FAT FAT FAT
Biscuits
(refrigerated dough) 55g 6.5g 1.5g 2.0g
Cake frosting (chocolate,
ready-to-eat) 35 6.5 2.0 1.0
Cheese crackers 30 9.5 2.0 2.0
Chocolate chip cookies 30 8.0 2.0 3.0
Doughnuts
(sugar or glazed) 55 14.0 3.5 4.0
French fries,
frozen (before cooking) 85 8.5 1.5 3.0
Graham crackers 30 3.0 0.5 2.0
Popcorn, microwave 30 7.5 2.0 2.5
Pound cake 80 16.5 3.5 4.5
Snack crackers 30 7.0 1.0 2.5
Taco shells 30 8.0 1.5 2.5


NEW WAYS TO COOK

You can only cut back on fats and oil so much before you start
robbing your usual meals of their familiar flavors and textures,
or you start burning them. To create interesting low-fat meals in
your kitchen may require experimenting with other techniques and
dishes, says Catharine Powers, a nutritionist at the Culinary
Institute of America, in Hyde Park, New York. "We need to shift
from a negative emphasis of taking things out of the diet to
thinking creatively about putting things in," she says.

Look beyond fats for flavor. Cook with fresh herbs, spices,
garlic, onion, scallions, flavored vinegars and high-quality
mustard to boost flavor. "Sweat" vegetables in their own juices
for a pungent flavor by cooking slowly in a covered pan. Adding a
little water, stock, wine or fruit juice during the process will
prevent sticking. When steaming foods (a good way to preserve
nutrients and protect natural juices) use herbs and spices on the
food and in the steaming water. For added taste after cooking,
use a pastry brush to thinly paint on a flavored oil.

Use alternatives for texture. Most cooks agree there's no
substitute for solid shortening in a pie crust, but you can
safely pull out 1/3 of the fat in recipes for cookies and
muffins. Replace it with applesauce or banana puree to maintain a
creamy texture. Use part-skim ricotta cheese (pureed and blended
with nonfat yogurt) for Bavarian pie and chocolate mousse, and
you'll never miss the egg yolks and cream. Evaporated skim milk
is a fine understudy for cream in cream-based sauces and soups.
And buttermilk (low-fat despite its name) can replace cream or
whole milk in ranch dressing, pancakes and muffins.

Seek out new sauces. Many chefs are turning to fruits, vegetables
and legumes to create purees, relishes, coulis and compotes.
Relishes (be they salsa, chutney or sambals) can be hot or cold,
chunky or smooth. Add them to rice, pasta, steamed vegetables or
meats. Rewrite the recipe. You can dramatically decrease the fat
content of conventional foods by making them with low-fat
ingredients. One example: Tacos made with corn tortillas, fat-
free refried beans and ground turkey breast.

Check out Cooking Light and Eating Well magazines, available by
subscription or on the newsstand. Both contain recipes that aim
for a diet with 30% or fewer calories from fat. Other resources
are the books Good Eating, Good Health Cookbook and Catch of the
Day, with unusual recipes for fish, published by Consumer Reports
Books. (To order the books, call 515-237-4903.)


EATING OUT, EATING SMART

Thanks to the well-publicized efforts of the Center for Science
in the Public Interest, Americans have learned that there are
fat-laden meals awaiting them at Chinese, Mexican and Italian
restaurants. Still, you can order a satisfying, low-fat meal in
most restaurants if you know how. In general, look for items that
are broiled, grilled, roasted, baked, steamed or poached. Keep
your distance from fried, deep-fried and "crispy" dishes. Ask for
vegetables seasoned with herbs instead of butter, pancakes with
fruit or yogurt topping, and a baked potato instead of fries.

Fast food. CR's tests of fast foods in the past two years showed
that grilled chicken sandwiches, roast beef sandwiches and salads
with low-fat dressings are the best choices nutritionally. Among
the lowest in fat were Wendy's Grilled Chicken, Arby's Light
Roast Beef Deluxe and Arby's Light Roast Turkey Deluxe. The basic
burgers also scored well in nutrition, but most didn't taste very
good. The exception: Wendy's Plain Single.

High-fat favorites get slimmer when you hold the mayonnaise-based
dressings, skip the cheese, skin the chicken and go easy on the
dipping sauce. At McDonald's, for instance, you can lunch on a
McGrilled Chicken Classic (which claims a modest 250 calories and
3 grams of fat), a side salad with Lite Vinaigrette (95 calories
and 4 grams of fat) and a vanilla low-fat frozen yogurt cone (120
calories and half a gram of fat).

Chinese food. Eat as the Chinese do, with small amounts of meat,
poultry and vegetables atop a mound of steamed (not fried) rice.
Egg-drop soup, wonton soup and steamed dumplings make good
beginnings. Avoid egg rolls, fried noodles and spare ribs. Select
steamed foods with a variety of sauces. Stir-fried dishes are not
always low in fat. When you order, ask that less oil than usual
be used.

Mexican food. Request baked or steamed corn tortillas instead of
the usual tortilla chips. Similarly, look for baked tortillas
rather than fried ones as a basis of tamales, tostadas and
enchiladas. Use salsa instead of sour cream, guacamole or cheese.
Chicken fajitas are a good choice, and ask that they be cooked in
little or no oil. Taco Bell's new "Border Light" menu cuts fat by
more than 50% and reduces calories an average of 20%.

Italian food. The richness of a pasta dish depends on the sauce.
Choose a tomato-based or clam sauce instead of a cream sauce like
Alfredo. Order chicken, meat, or seafood broiled or grilled
instead of breaded and fried.

French food. "Nouvelle" cuisine typically offers sauces featuring
meat juices, stocks and herbs, and is lower in fat than classic
French cuisine. Start with consomme or steamed mussels rather
than pate or vichyssoise. Choose light stews (bouillabaisse or
ratatouille), meats with a wine sauce (bordelaise), or broiled,
poached or steamed fish.


THE FAT QUIZ

How well are you keeping extra fat out of your diet? One way to
check is to keep a careful daily record of how many calories and
grams of fat you eat. A much simpler way to check your fat
consumption is to complete the fat quiz designed by researchers
at Seattle's Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. Their
studies have found it a fairly accurate way to estimate
consumption. The questionnaire also lets you know how well you're
doing on five basic fat-cutting strategies recommended by
dietitians.

Think about your diet over the past three months and answer each
of the quiz's 20 questions with a number from the following list:
o 1 = Usually/Always
o 2 = Often
o 3 = Sometimes
o 4 = Rarely/Never

If a question doesn't apply to your diet, leave it blank. Also,
you may wish to print the quiz before answering the questions,
for the sake of convenience when you figure your score.


The Questions

In the past three months, when you...
1. ate fish, did you avoid frying it? ___
2. ate chicken, did you avoid frying it? ___
3. ate chicken, did you remove the skin? ___
4. ate spaghetti or noodles, did you eat it
plain or with a meatless tomato sauce? ___
5. ate red meat, did you trim all the
visible fat? ___
6. ate ground beef, did you choose extra lean? ___
7. ate bread, rolls or muffins, did you eat them
without butter or margarine? ___
8. drank milk, was it skim or 1% milk
instead of 2% or whole? ___
9. ate cheese, was it a reduced-fat variety? ___
10. ate a frozen dessert, was it sherbet,
ice milk, or nonfat yogurt or ice cream? ___
11. ate cooked vegetables, did you eat them
without adding butter, margarine, salt pork
or bacon fat? ___
12. ate cooked vegetables, did you avoid
frying them? ___
13. ate potatoes, were they cooked by
a method other than frying? ___
14. ate boiled or baked potatoes, did you eat them
without butter, margarine or sour cream? ___
15. ate green salads with dressing, did you
use a low-fat or nonfat dressing? ___
16. ate dessert, did you eat only fruit? ___
17. ate a snack, was it raw vegetables? ___
18. ate a snack, was it fresh fruit? ___
19. cooked red meat, did you trim all the fat
before cooking? ___
20. used mayonnaise or a mayonnaise-type
dressing, was it low-fat or nonfat? ___


Scoring the Quiz

To estimate the percentage of calories from fat in your diet,
transfer the numbers from the quiz to the following score sheet.
(You may wish to print the sheet for the sake of convenience.)
Disregard questions that were left blank.

Items, each pertaining to a numbered question, are arranged
within five fat-lowering strategies rather than according to
their order in the quiz. Figure your Average score for each of
the strategies (the Subtotal divided by the number of answers you
gave). Add up the five averages for each strategy and divide by
five.

Strategy 1: Avoid frying.
Items
1 ___
2 ___
12 ___
13 ___
Subtotal ___
Average ___


Strategy 2: Modify meat.
Items
3 ___
5 ___
6 ___
19 ___
Subtotal ___
Average ___


Strategy 3: Avoid fat as flavoring.
Items
4 ___
7 ___
11 ___
14 ___
Subtotal ___
Average ___


Strategy 4: Substitute low-fat or nonfat versions.
Items
8 ___
9 ___
10 ___
15 ___
20 ___
Subtotal ___
Average ___


Strategy 5: Replace fatty foods with produce.
Items
16 ___
17 ___
18 ___
Subtotal ___
Average ___

OVERALL SCORE = ___ (sum of 5 averages)

OVERALL AVERAGE = ___ (divide overall score by 5)


If overall your percentage of fats
average is... from calories is...
1.0 to 1.5 under 25%
1.5 to 2 25 to 29
2 to 2.5 30 to 34
2.5 to 3 35 to 39
3 to 3.5 40 to 44
3.5 to 4 45% or more


Copyright Consumers Union of U.S., Inc., June 1995



Transmitted: 95-06-01 10:37:31 EDT

Transmitted: 4/19/96 3:20 PM