Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 10, Number 6, 1 June 1993 — ʻAi pono, e ola [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

ʻAi pono, e ola

Eat right and Iwe well

by Dr. Terry Shintani

The Fat Finder Formula

By now it is clear that the traditional Hawaiian way of eating has been demonstrated to be mueh healthier than what most people eat today. One of the biggest differences between the way we eat today and the way it was in the past is the amount of fat in the diet. The diet in the past was somewhere between 7 percent and 10 percent fat in ealone content. Today we eat about 35-40% fat in caloric eontect. This high consumption of dietary fat has been implicated in promoting diseases that are killing Hawaiians and most people in America, including heart disease, cancer stroke, and diabetes. Thus, in order to follow a diet that is low in fat, similar to that of our ancestors, it is essential that we learn how to identify the fats in our diet. This is difficult because the nutrition labels on our food are some of the greatest sources of misleading information in modern marketing. All too often. the fats in foods are hidden or skillfully disguised on the food labels, and sometimes deliberately so. For example, you might think

that "2 percent fat" milk is really good because it is only 2 percent fat. This is a great lie. "2 percent" milk is 2 percent fat by weight, not by calories! If you look at 2 percent milk by ealories, it is actually about 45 percent fat! In fact, whole milk is only 3.3 percent fat by weight, but is actually 55% weight by calories. Thus you might say that drinking 2 percent milk avoids 1.3 percent of the total fat in the product-hardly worth the effort. Confused? Well, rather than being confused, learn how to be a 'fat detective' and be on the alert for 'fat fraud' during every

supermarket trip, and every opportunity there is to look at a food label.

This is where the Fat Finder Formula comes in. The Fat Finder Formula (FFF) is like a translator or a key to understanding fat labels. It offers you a simple way to look right past the apparent nutritional contents of any given product and see to the core of things. It is a simple eal-

culation that allows you to ealeulate the percentage of fat in your food. Here's the formula: Take the grams of fat (usually found on the food label), multiply it by nine (the number of fat calories per gram), then divide the answer by the total number of calories in the food. Onee again, the FFF=grams of fat multiplied by 9, the sum to be divided by the total number of calories. Your answer will give you the proportion of fat per calorie, as a decimal figure. If you want to convert it to percent, simply multiply by 100.

A good example is a hot dog, whieh is supposedly less than 30 percent fat. In reality the fat is 30 percent by weight! When you take the weight of the fat, 16.6 grams x 9=149.4 and divide it by the total number of calories, 183, you may find an eyebrow-raising 82 percent fat in your hot dog!

Even ehieken hot dogs (whieh are often labeled as being less than 20 percent fat) are not mueh better. Using the FFF, you realize that ehieken hot dogs are about 73 percent fat. Even foods that are supposedly heahh foods are not always low in fat. For example, say you have a container of "low fat, low salt" ricotta cheese, generally considered a good nutritional bet by most people. One brand claims one gram(g) of fat per serving (15 servings per 15 oz. container), with overall calories per serving at 30. This means we take the 1 oz. fat times 9, whieh

equals 9; then we divide this number by the total number of calories.

30, and eome up with the number .3. To convert to percent multiply by 100 and you find that this product is actually 30 percent fat by calories, considerabiy higher than our ideal intake of 7-12 percent! Yet this product has glaring yellow labels all over it bragging that it has two-thirds

less fat and two-thirds less sodium than whole milk ricotta! And, though this may be true, it's far from a low-fat product. You ean see now that with the FFF, you ean find hidden fat in any nutritionally labeled product, even though most food manufacturers try to hide the true fat eontent. And, since it's apparent now that too mueh dietary fat has severe consequences to the Hawaiian people. It's long past time that these deceptive practices were stopped. Unfortunately, the U.S. government, while addressing the issue, is moving slowly on implementing guidelines and targeting key manufacturers that are using these deceptive practices. In the meantime, you're on you own when it comes to detecting fat in your food. Fortunately, the FFF gives you a simple devise to see to the truth. Dr. Terri Shintani, physician and nutritionist, is Director of Preventative Meāieine at the Wai'anae Coast Comprehensive Health Center.

The Fat Finder Formula: grams fat x 9 divided by total calories= proportion of fat (decimal) x 100=percent fat.