A Big, Fat Headache for P&G?

Wait a minute. You mean to tell me that eating bags upon bags of potato chips laced with a fat-substitute might still make folks fat?

Ummm, yup! Purde University conducted a study in which some rats were given just high-fat Pringle’s and others a mix of chips, including some with Olestra. Those that had the Olestra chips consumed more food and got fat. Worse, they kept consuming more food even after being taken off the Olestra chips, and stayed fat.

Of course, Olestra is no longer a material business to P&G, as sales peaked at about $400 million in the late 1990s, and were then cut in half following the imposition of an FDA warning label on side-effects. But P&G’s Light Lays and Pringles Light chips still contain the compound, and the company also sells a fat called BakeLean with it. What’s more, thee company’s PGFoodingredients website indicates more than 6.6 bilion servings of Olean, P&G’s brand name for Olestra, have been consumed.