Written by Catherine Saxelby
on Wednesday, 29 April 2009.
Tagged: Calories, diet foods, fat, food labels, guides, trends
‘Light' or ‘lite' foods seem to be the answer to our diet prayers. You eat - and enjoy - the same food but you end up consuming less fat and fewer kilojoules (calories). To a dieter (and I'm always watching what I eat), it sounds just perfect!
When light foods first started appearing on our supermarket shelves way back in the 1990s, they were quite simple. They had less fat than the regular version, but the drop in fat was one you almost couldn't notice unless you compared the two versions mouthful by mouthful.
1.You can't eat TWICE as much. Even if a light food has 50% less fat, the kilojoules only drop by 40% at the most. So you can't eat twice as much if you want to lose weight. To use light foods well, choose the light version but keep to the SAME portion size as you normally eat.
2.Fat adds flavour. If you take the fat out, you have to put something else in to give a light food enough flavour and mouth-feel to make it tasty. Often what you add back is sugar, fruit puree or starch and these add kilojoules.
3.Read the label and check WHAT is being lightened - is it the fat, salt, alcohol? Or just the texture or colour?
4.Watch if the serve size is really small. Many light products are packaged in smaller sizes which means a lower weight of food. So it looks like you're saving lots simply because you're eating less weight of food - that is, if you aren't tempted to eat more! At times, you could do better by just eating a small portion of the full-fat version!
5. Sometimes it's more enjoyable and flavoursome to eat a small amount of the ‘real thing' than lots of a light substitute. Sit down, focus on the food, savour it slowly and you'll feel satisfied.
We divided light foods into 3 groups based on the amount of fat AND kilojoules they save you. We reckoned that if you weren't getting a 30 per cent saving in fat AND kilojoules, it wasn't worth the trade down!
According to our calculations, these light products really save you lots - over 30 per cent saving in fat (or sugar or alcohol) AND kilojoules - and make a difference to your diet efforts. These are the ones to buy:
As well as these light foods -
Foods with less alcohol:
Light beer
Foods with less sugar:
Light blackcurrant juice
You need to check the label and do the maths on the following light products and weigh up whether they're worth it (and they may be if it's something you really love to eat). But remember that even if they save you fat, they often don't save you many kilojoules as the fat is replaced with extra sugar or starch to maintain a smooth creamy texture or an attractive taste for baking eg:
These light foods give you no saving in fat or kilojoules:
Check what is being lightened. Is it the fat or sugar or alcohol? Or just the texture or salt (no savings for weight loss). Sadly.
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