Almost everything nowadays has a diet version, such as diet coke, diet pasta, and diet pizza,
which promises a similar flavor to the real thing without the drawbacks, mainly calories. Sugar
substitutes, which can be found on the label of a number of items, are one way for manufacturers to
make their products "diet-friendly without the drawbacks." But why isn't there a fat substitute? Wait, there might be one;
But why isn't there a fat substitute? Wait, there might be one;
let's find out what it is with PAA.
Hi, I am Shao Chieh Lo, welcome to what people also ask, where
I search something seemingly obvious and share with you some of its PAA, aka People Also Ask,
which is a feature telling you what other people are searching on Google
that relates to your query. Today's keyword is olestra, a fat substitute created by P&G.
We'll discuss what it is and why it is not as popular as a sugar substitute. So let’s start
with our first PAA, Does olestra mimic a true fat? The answer to this question is extracted
from an article titled “The Chemistry of . . . Fat Substitutes” published by Discover Magazine,
which is an American science magazine launched in October 1980 by Time Inc. and has been owned by
Kalmbach Publishing since 2010. According to this article, a typical fat consists of two parts:
a backbone of glycerol, a type of alcohol, linked to three long-tailed hydrocarbons called fatty
acids, which vary in type depending on the fat. Lipases, a type of enzyme found in the intestines,
have evolved over millennia to split two fatty acids, leaving truncated molecules small enough
to pass through the intestinal wall. In olestra, however, the glycerol has been replaced by a
molecule of sucrose, a sugar, which has enough free arms to attach to eight fatty acids. Lipases
cannot clamp onto such a large particle, so olestra passes, unscathed, through the intestines.
Olestra tastes like fat but contains, in effect, no usable calories, and two studies— both funded
by Procter & Gamble— suggest that consuming it can be helpful for those with high cholesterol or
heart problems. One of the studies indicates that people who eat olestra can reduce their
cholesterol levels by more than 10 percent; the other study found a more than 10 percent increase
in blood flow to the heart among people who had just eaten an olestra-filled banana muffin. Here I
want you to notice two things, first, the article mentioned these research was published in 2001, so
they are very old studies that might be outdated. Second, these studies were founded by P&G which is
the exact company that was trying to commercialize olestra, so I'll take these findings with a grain
of salt. So let’s talk about its controversy in our next PAA: Can we digest olestra?
Google’s auto generated answer is linked to an article titled “Olestra Controversy” published
by The Canadian Encyclopedia which is the national encyclopedia of Canada, published online by the
Toronto-based historical organization Historica Canada. And another article titled “Olestra
Eaters, Beware” published by WebMD. According to these two articles, olestra might soak up and
eliminate essential vitamins and nutrients. It may also cause flatulence and diarrhea because,
well, if fat cannot be absorbed by the body it has to go somewhere eventually. But in 1996, despite
strong objections by nutritionists and consumer advocates, the United States Food and Drug
Administration approved olestra for use in salty snacks and crackers - provided they carry a label
warning consumers of possible digestive upsets. ​​Reporting in the Feb 15, 2000 issue of the
Annals of Internal Medicine, a research team led by Ranga Balasekaran, MD, also found that people
who regularly consume olestra-containing potato chips may test false-positive for steatorrhea
because they are likely to have high amounts of fat in their feces due to the unique chemical
composition of olestra, leading to expensive and unnecessary tests. So, here’s the question:
Is olestra still used? Google’s auto-generated answer is linked to an article titled “6 foods
that are legal in the US but banned in other countries” published by Insider in 2017.
According to this article, since Olestra has been linked to gastrointestinal disease
in children, terrible diarrhea in adults and has also been found to increase appetite, completely
negating its potential fat-free benefits, it's banned in Canada and European countries. But
you might find Olestra, sometimes referred to by its brand name Olean, in American foods. I
just never saw one personally, I wonder where I could find one. Today we learned what Olestra is,
the potential risks of using it, and why it’s so controversial. If you made it to the end of the
video, chances are that you enjoy learning what people also ask on Google. But let's face it,
reading PAA yourself will be a pain. So here's the deal, I will do the reading for you and upload a
video compiling some fun PAAs once a week, all you have to do is to hit the subscribe button and
the bell icon so you won't miss any PAA report that I compile. So just do it right now. Bye!