Is diet food making you fat?

YOU may not like to hear this, but gulping down that can of Diet Coke is unlikely to help you lose those extra pounds. A study done on Americans showed that those who downed more diet fizzy drinks a day saw their waistband expand five times more than those who stayed away from them.

"Diet sodas are sugar free, but they contain artificial sweeteners such as aspartame, which is an appetite stimulant, the last thing you need when you are on a diet," warns Dr Rekha Sharma, president, Indian Dietetic Association.

In fact, diet food may end up making you fat.

This includes all those diet drinks, ice creams, chocolates and butter that promise you to help you shed those extra kilos. So before you set out shopping for these products, think again, and read on to find out how they impact your body.

DIET ICE CREAM

THE idea of an ice cream that is lighter, sugar free or has low/ no fat was every dieters dream, which ice cream manufacturers didn’t take long to translate into reality. Amul's Slim Scoop, Diet Scoop, Dairy Den, Havmor's Vanilla, or Vadilal’s or Mother Diary's Dietz are some of the ice creams marketed as diet products.

But dieticians and health experts say that this is an illusion. " Most brands of ice cream which actually carry the " low fat" label should ideally contain at least 25 per cent less fat than the regular version, though the ideal is 50 per cent. But it has been found that the low fat version has more calories and fat than you imagine,” says Dr Shilpa Thakur, dietician, Asian Heart Institute of Medical Science.

The saturated fat content and sugar in regular ice cream is what makes it set well at low temperatures. Diet ice cream is different. “ To make this fat free, ice cream manufacturers add more chemicals to mimic the taste of the full fat ice cream," says Dr Sharma.

DIET CHOCOLATES

FAT and sugar free chocolates are a dream come true for chocoholics on a weight loss regime. There are also fat free chocolate pudding cups, which claim to have only 35 calories compared to 80 calories in the regular pudding. However, experts have a different take on this.

"Don't get into the trap of no-fat chocolates. When manufacturers remove the sweet stuff, they add fat. These might also contain the element, sorbitol, which can cause health problems like bloating and diarrhoea," says Dr Sharma.

Instead of consuming them the way the manufacturers advise, they should be taken only in between the meals or in small portions along with the diet meal, say dieticians. "A top brand says that five pieces make up one serving, which has 210 calories and 14 grams of fat. But actually only one piece is enough, which should be around 42 calories and has less than 3 grams of fat,” says Dr Sharma.

LOW FAT BUTTER

CONSUMPTION of low fat butter is of course any day a better choice than the regular stuff but too much of that can make you fat too. Nutralite and Amul Lite, the low calorie bread spreads are a popular choice among the health conscious. These are cholesterol free, low in saturated fats.

and high in unsaturated fats. The total fat content in Amul Lite is 59 per cent as compared to 80 per cent in the regular kind of butter, and even the calorie content in, say a 100 grams of Amul Lite, is only 531 as compared to 720 calories of equal quantity of butter of the regular kind.

But according to dieticians, the hitch lies in the preservatives and salts added in these low fat butters, which are high in sodium as well. “ These have synthetic fat replacers, used to make low fat or fat free versions of actual fat products, such as butter.

These products are also known to have synthetic fat products, so that the body cannot absorb fat, and these products can cause digestive problems in many cases,” says Dr Sharma.

DIET SNACKS

GO TO any of the urban supermarkets, and you won’t miss those ubiquitous fat free sweets, jams, muffins and bhujias . All these, promising you to take on guilt free trip! But beware, as most of these snacks are also sugar and fat bombs in disguise.

Gorge on them, yes, but not with false hopes, warn experts.

The famous baked bhujias sold as low fat snacks, are considered to help the weight watchers, since they are not fried. But there is a problem in that as well, as these snacks have a considerable amount of fat too, even though they are baked. So is the case with low calorie jams, which use fat substitutes, says Dr Sharma.

In fact, studies have proved that even that the popular choice among those on diet, the low calorie potato chips can make one fat. One research showed that fat substitutes in low calorie potato chips actually end up interfering with the body’s ability to regulate food intake, which can lead to inefficient use of calories and cause weight gain.

The study which was conducted by the researchers at Purdue University said that consuming low calorie potato chips could actually backfire your entire weight loss programme and make you gain weight!