A Cure for Fat?

Fat Begone? ginnerobot (CC Licensed)

With all due respect to Snackwells, not all chocolate cookies taste the same. The human tongue, the stomach and the soul can tell the difference between a fat-free and a fat-filled snack. Sadly, so can the human waistline. But what if instead of eating less fatty food that taste so dang yummy, your body just absorbed less of the freaking fat? That’s the claim being made by Satisfit, a nutritional additive being developed not for a 3 am infomercial, but by the food and nutrition department of Dow. Hungry for more?

Satisfit Weight Care Technology has completed pre-clinical trials showing that adding it to food can help keep weight gain down; animal studies showed a 7 percent reduction in weight gain for equivalent diets. So while the label showing 20g of fat per serving means men everywhere will allow it in their pantry (the labels wouldn’t change), the inclusion of Satisfit might mean women will actually buy it at the grocery store.

According to Dow, Satisfit is a “highly functionalized cellulose that is partially hydrophobic and may behave similarly to fat.” That behavior would allow the ingredient to take trans and saturated fat out of the body that normally would have added to your love handles. The cherry on top (or icing on the cake, as it were) is that Satisfit doesn’t add any calories to the food. It's 100 percent soluble, meaning it could easily by added to anything from beverages, to dairy products, to microwave meals. Dow is currently looking for development partners to test the effectiveness in specific foods during human clinical trials. Anybody got the number for Dunkin Donuts?