Tuesday 15 May 2012

Fat free

At a well-known supermarket we bought a Light Choice pot of yoghurt. On the pot it states both that it is fat free and that it contains 90% less fat. You have to search the small print to answer the question '90% of what?'  There you read that this is 90% less than the fat content of their standard yoghurt. In other words, I presume, it contains 10% of the fact content of the standard yoghurt.

There are two possible conclusions we can draw from this: (1) that the standard yoghurt is also fat free (because the only solution of the equation 10% of x = 0 is x = 0); or (2) that 'fat free' does not mean 'no fat', but that the proportion of fat is below a particular level.

Even more puzzling was the pot of fromage frais, which was described as fat free and containing 90% less fat. Now the small print elsewhere on the pot tells us that this means 90% less than the fat content of their standard creme fraiche! That's doubly bonkers. Let's at least compare like with like!


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