HEALTH: ARE WE READY FOR FAT-FREE FAT?

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THE LAVISH DINNER THAT CHEF John Folse prepared for a private party of Procter & Gamble executives tasted rich enough to make a cardiologist apoplectic. Folse, owner of the celebrated Lafitte's Landing restaurant near Baton Rouge, served thick seafood gumbo, sauteed herb-encrusted duck breast, sauteed speckled trout, fried soft-shell crawfish, salad with vinaigrette dressing and--for those who had room left for it--Mardi Gras cake. Every dish was prepared the old-fashioned Louisiana way, with generous dollops of oil; every bite tasted heavenly. Yet the whole thing, from soup to dessert, was a low-fat meal. That's because Chef Folse had cooked it not with conventional oil but rather with an experimental--and as yet unapproved--synthetic oil called olestra. Olestra is the stealth missile of fat molecules; it passes through the gastrointestinal tract without being digested or absorbed. As far as the human body is concerned, olestra is fat-free fat.

This week, as revelers around the world make their New Year's resolutions, one item is at the top of just about everyone's lists: "This year," we tell ourselves, "I'm going to eat right." The truth, though, is that we don't want to eat right. What we want is to eat whatever we feel like, in whatever quantity we want, without gaining weight or clogging up our arteries. And food producers are delighted to cooperate: supermarket shelves overflow with diet soda, sugar-free candy and, in recent years, fat-free cookies, crackers and snacks of all descriptions. Some of them may taste like chemical-flavored cardboard, but for millions of diet-conscious consumers, they're better than practicing self-control.

Olestra, however, could make guilt-free eating a pleasure. It doesn't just substitute for fat. It is fat, with all the flavor-enhancing, palate-soothing smoothness of corn or canola oil. And unlike any of the half a dozen or so fat substitutes currently available, olestra doesn't break down when it's used for frying. That means fat-free potato chips, French fries and maybe even Cajun feasts that taste like the real thing could someday be available to the general public.

They could become available, that is, if the U.S. Food and Drug Administration lets Procter & Gamble put products cooked with olestra on the market. This month, after decades of study and deliberation, that decision should finally come down. Last spring a group of senior FDA scientists concluded that olestra could safely be used in chips and other nonsweet snacks. In November, after four exhaustive days of meetings, most members of an FDA-appointed food advisory committee agreed.

Now there's just one more hurdle: FDA commissioner David Kessler has to give final approval before olestra-based snacks can be sold to the public. But while commissioners almost always go along with their scientists' and advisory committees' recommendations, Kessler is weighing this one with special care. Olestra could become a staple in the diets of tens of millions of Americans, so it's crucial that it be safe. Moreover, nearly a third of all Americans are obese, and the combination of high-fat diets and extra weight contributes to heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes and several types of cancer. If olestra could help drive down fat consumption, it could literally save lives.