‘Light’ Desserts Take Some of the Sin Out of Sweets

Can sweet-toothed dieters have their cake and eat it, too?

Sara Lee says they can, and she’s not alone. Since January, at least four companies have introduced “light” dessert lines--low-fat or no-fat cakes and cookies with little or no cholesterol, all designed to take the guilt out of goodies, even for those with one eye on the scale.

There’s Sara Lee Lights--Double Chocolate Cake and five other frozen varieties with 200 or fewer calories per serving. Pepperidge Farm offers seven varieties in its new frozen Dessert Light line. According to package labels, each has 190 or fewer calories and less cholesterol and fat than regular desserts.

Earlier this month, Entenmann’s light line of cakes and cookies began appearing on California market shelves. According to the company, they have no fat, no cholesterol, no tropical oils--and less than 100 calories per serving.

For bulge-battling Baby Boomers with fond memories of Hostess cupcakes, there are now Hostess Lights--low-fat, no-cholesterol versions.

New Hostess Lights get only 7% of their calories from fat; the original gets 24% of its calories from fat.

That’s not all. In the near future, dessert lovers may be able to eat less fat and lower their blood cholesterol in a single bite, thanks to a new fat substitute under development. Speaking Monday at the American Chemical Society meeting in Boston, George Inglett, a researcher at the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Northern Regional Research Center in Peoria, Ill., told colleagues about a nearly tasteless gel, made from a specially processed oat bran and flour, that has about 10% the calories of most fat.

Several companies have expressed an interest in the substance, called “Oatrim,” even though not everyone believes oat bran is the best way to lower cholesterol.

But don’t expect “Oatrim” to show up in products for two or three years, said Michael Gould, the research leader at the USDA Northern Regional Research Center.

Meanwhile, light desserts prompt two common questions from sweets aficionados:

What does light mean, exactly? “We’re still defining it,” said Raymond Newberry, a Food and Drug Administration spokesman.

“We now interpret it to mean the product has at least one-third fewer calories than a comparison product.”

How can dessert taste good without fat? “In some foods, such as meat, fat contributes greatly to the flavor,” explained Gould.

“But in frozen desserts, fat doesn’t contribute as much to flavor as to smoothness and consistency.”

So should everyone feel free to indulge in light desserts? “It depends on how good the rest of your diet is,” said Judith S. Stern, professor of nutrition at UC Davis. “And it depends on where you are in your weight-control program.”

Still, she believes the new wave of light desserts might be a step in the right direction.

“Research suggests that fat and sugar, eaten in combination, may make fat cells get bigger than eating fat or sugar alone. In animal studies done in Japan, the animals that ate fat and sugar together got fatter than those that ate fat and, several hours later, ate sugar.

“Plan to include these (light desserts) in your diet when you’re not starving,” Stern advised, reasoning that eaters will be less inclined to binge.

“If light desserts don’t taste as good as regular, I don’t think it’s worth it. Have a smaller piece of the real stuff instead.”