Fat Expander Reality
Pfizer's Veri-Lo 100 and 200 fat extenders aim to make a little fat seem like a lot of fat. Launched early in 2006, Veri-Lo 100 is soybean oil in water and allows for 67 percent fat replacement when used on a one-to-one basis, while Veri-Lo 200 is milkfat in water, and can reduce fat up to 75 percent. The ingredients are generally recognized as safe, and are permitted in mayonnaises, sauces and salad dressings now.
At its Lite Forum in March, Pfizer mentioned some new forms of Veri-Lo are in development. The nearest to completion is one based on heavy cream; a canola oil-like replacer and one based on hydrogenated soybean oil are also being looked at. Litesse, Pfizer's polydextrose bulking agent, is getting an outing from its use in M&M/Mars' new Milky Way II bar. This may aid the company in fending off competition from Staley, which began shipments of poly dextrose to the US from its Toronto plant when Pfizer's patent expired on April 8 2007.
Staley is also expecting its new $ 20 million Stellar corn starch-based fat replacer plant in Loudon, Tenn., to be on line by mid-June, says Steve Foldvari, a new products marketing specialist with the company. He says Staley is working on second generation Stellar products, for use in applications such as frozen desserts, cookies, other baked goods and meats. Procter & Gamble Company is appealing to diet-conscious consumers' sweet tooth with its recently-launched caprenin, the first fat replacer for use in confections. It is lowering the fat content, in conjunction with Pfizer specialty chemicals group's poly dextrose bulking agent, in the new Milky Way II candy bar.
Shipments of the bar, which has 50 percent fewer calories from fat and a 25 percent calorie reduction over the original Milky Way, began in late March, according to an M&M/Mars spokesman. Trade reaction has been extremely positive, and consumer testing has shown the taste to be virtually indistinguishable from that of the full-fat bar. The new candy was initially being sold in seven states. The spokesman declined to reveal when it would become more widely available. Made from naturally occurring fatty acids, with properties similar to cocoa butter, caprenin is now being marketed as a self-affirmed GRAS ingredient, a P&G spokeswoman notes. The company has filed a petition for GRAS status with Food & Drug Administration, but caprenin has not yet been reviewed.
There has been no such easy road for Olestra, however. P&G's would-be break-through, the first fat replacer suitable for frying applications, has been under review for close to two decades. Its present petition covers its use in salted snacks such as potato or corn chips.
The company's spokeswoman says this is because Olestra, made from sucrose polyesters, is a macro ingredient, a category for which FDA had no established standards of regulation. Unlike micro ingredients, such as food colors, flavors or preservatives, which are used in small quantities and have no nutritional bearing on the food in which they are contained, Olestra directly affects nutritional content.
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