When people buy fat-free products, such as sour cream and butter, for health reasons, do they consider that the process those foods go through are probably worse for them than the natural fat?

Exactly. Most people are stupid.

I would guess that no, they probably don’t think about it. They see fat-free and immediately think it’s good for them. Same for diet sodas. Yes, things like butter and sour cream are pretty much all fat and therefore not very healthy, but for most people, if these things are eaten in moderation, they shouldn’t do much harm in the long run. But, of course, most people do not know what “in moderation” means either.

@PretentiousArtist Can you say, “Buying bottled water”? I think that is the stupidest of the stupid!

@frankie Exactly. If it’s so bad for you, stay away from it all together. It’s not like you need sour cream and butter to live.

Agreed, Bottled water is stupid and trendy

@PretentiousArtist Agreed. Did you know “Evian” is “naive” spelled backward? :)

The first time I saw a container of “fat-free half and half” I busted out laughing right there in the store. Talk about an oxymoron.

I shudder to think what they do to achieve that definition. And trying to imagine what it might taste like makes me gag at the thought.

If you don’t want fat, don’t buy half and half, duuuhhhh !

Fat Free sour cream is usually dairy thickened with something else, rather than being congealed dairy fat. Check the ingredients – it could be as simple as tapioca or some other starch. This is a far cry from something that is “fat free” because it was fried in Olestra, which passes through your gut undigested, sometimes before you are ready for it to do so.

@laureth But they have to take the fat out to replace it with something else.

When you buy bottled water, though, you’re not buying the water so much as you are buying a convenient disposable container. I have a few durable water bottles, but I’ve forgotten them more than once, bought a bottle of water, and just kept on refilling it.

Things like fat-free sour cream tend to be vile. But America is a Puritan country at heart, and denying yourself the pleasure of foods you like and eating vile substitutes instead seems like the path to virtue.

Val, they would replace it with the thickener. <shrug> Or just add more thickened dairy to the container. Carageenan, for example, is made from seaweed, and is a common thickener. Fat-free dairy + thickener (minus water) = fat free sour cream.

@laureth But, I mean, HOW do they get the fat out? There is a difference between “low fat,” which I could see could be accomplished by “watering it down” so to speak with a filler, and “No fat,” which means…there is no fat in it! How do they getit out?

@cwilbur Actually, I was thinking that too. I too have a couple of empty bottles I saved when other people left them here!
I’m just going to continue to sin my teeth out, unless I need to lose weight or something, in which case I’ll almost completely cut out fat stuffs!

How do they get the fat out of skim milk?

Milk, in its natural state, separates. That’s why you hear old folks talking about having to shake a bottle of milk. They wait, and it separates, and you skim the cream off the top. This is sold as heavy cream, whipping cream, etc.

Milk nowadays is homogenized, because people think shaking milk is inconvenient or something. It’s sprayed through a tiny nozzle at a hard surface, breaking up the buoyant fat molecules. That way, when you buy “whole” milk, it’s got all the original fat in it, but in a way that’s more dangerous to your body. Skim milk, 2% milk, etc., have had the cream scooped off the top.

And that is how you get fat-free dairy. :)

I buy un-homogenized when I can get it, and shake it myself. It’s far more delicious, and if I want, I have the option of letting the fat float up and whipping it or using it in Alfredo sauce or something, or shaking it back up and having tasty milk.

“Can’t be good, IMO”

Do you actually know if it’s not good, or are you just going with a “gut feeling”? I prefer to deal in facts, thank you very much.

@DominicX Just a gut feeling, DK, which is why I specified that it was my opinon. But, I’ll do some research just for you.

@laureth I hate low fat milk! Actually, they homogenize it to kill off germs, or something. But I’ve had milk straight from the cow, after it’s been refrigerated…it’s delicious! Anyway, I can see that it would be easy to just let the fat in milk separate out, but how do they get it out of sour cream and things?

“Pasteurize” kills off germs. “Homogenize” (“to make one”) is to mix the fat back in permanently.

I worked in the natural food industry for more than a decade. You can’t pass one over on me. ;)

@laureth LOL! I do stand corrected!

Val. I’ve explained this. Take skim milk. Thicken it. Bingo, fat free sour cream. Read the label. Seriously.

To make fat-free sour cream, they don’t remove the fat from sour cream. They start by culturing skim milk to get the fermentation flavor. Then they add whey protein concentrate, which is essentially a by-product of cheese production, and a whole bunch of thickeners tailored to mimic the mouth feel of sour cream. These are various starches and natural gums. There’s also coloring to give it a the slight yellow tinge we expect.

I once heard that all commercial milk is first skimmed, then the cream is mixed back in to get the various grades of milk. I haven’t verified that.

@Harp Sounds right. Ask @laureth. And while we’re at it, laureth, where can I get non-homogenized milk??

@laureth BTW, thank you for the explanation.

Harp is right, just went into more detail than I did because I was on the way to class. :)

Where to get non-homo (hetero?) milk – try natural food stores (possibly like Wild Oats, Whole Foods, etc.) or food co-ops near you.

@laureth I’ll start checking!

Nope they don’t consider usually, I’d say. This is like when I see people using artificial sweeteners…I am always baffled.

I don’t believe it’s legal to sell raw milk in the US. So if you live near the Canadian border you’re golden.

What some small farmers do is take a voluntary donation to get around the prohibition on selling raw unprocessed milk but that’s kind of a word of mouth thing to find them.

There are many folks into health foods and such who feel that processed milk is not healthy for one’s body and will not drink milk unless it’s unprocessed.

Many other “fat free” processed foods are also much higher in sugars (carbohydrates) than the foods they imitate. So actually the caloric intake can be increased markedly.

@breedmitch It slays me when a candy advertises “Fat free!”—

nope. people who are fooled by packaging that says “lite” or “fat-free” are always fooled. if it’s in a box or plastic or even out of a vending machine, chances are a lot of process had to go into that food or snack.

get in the habit of buying fresh items that you have to cook, grill, broil or steam for yourself.

@Buttonstc You are correct, you can not sell raw milk here. We have goats and we have to be careful about selling the milk and not letting anybody find out. Its so stupid. Control control control.

I love skim milk.

@laureth Mmm, now I want to try to find non-homogenized milk!

Low fat sour cream is nasty. Someone in the household accidentally bought it and I wanted to gag! What a nasty product.

@casheroo

My parents always made dip with fat-free sour cream and I’ve been having it every time we’ve had chips with dip. I never really thought about it until now, but I’ve never minded the taste. Probably because I’ve never tasted anything else. I don’t really like sour cream outside of dip.

Not even on tacos? You mad
Not that I eat tacos anymore, it was orgasmic before I became aware of my own health

@DominicX Oh, you poor neglected child ;) I eat sour cream pretty darn often. And my kid could eat it for a damn meal I’d eat spoonfuls while pregnant, probably why he has such a taste for it It really does taste different, but if you’ve had it only in dip then I don’t think there’d be a big difference.

“Raw milk” is, by the way, milk that has not been Pasteurized. That means it hasn’t been heated to the germ-killing point. It’s mostly illegal because people think there’s poop in it or something, but it is findable (and legal in some small places).

Non-homogenized milk is very legal and very yummy.

Just because you can’t imagine something doesn’t mean it’s harmful. If you think that, you’re just as dumb as the people you think are so dumb. I guess you’ve never heard the expression “the cream rises to the top” or you didn’t realize it was true. Making fat free dairy products is the easiest thing in the world. It doesn’t hurt them any more than dipping a spoon into milk, because that’s all it is.

@La_chica_gomela Thank you for your opinion. I actually learned a lot of things I didn’t know on this question. For one, I learned that it is actually relatively easy to make “fat free” or lite milk products, which changed my earlier assumption.

@Val123: I’m glad you learned stuff. That’s what fluther’s all about. Re-reading my post it sounds pretty harsh. Sorry about that.

@La_chica_gomela :) We’re cool! Thanks so much. I really respect that…