The rollout of guilt-free snacking has begun in the u.s. and by this summer, consumers across America will be able to buy potato chips and other snacks fried with olestra, a fat-free, calorie-free cooking oil developed by Procter & Gamble.

Branded Olean by p&g, the cooking oil is used in the manufacture of the company’s Pringles line of potato crisps, and has been sold to other snack-food makers including Frito-Lay, which is using the product to make fat-free versions of its Ruffles and Doritos chips.

But Canadians probably won’t see these fat-free goodies on their grocery shelves any time soon.

Olestra has been under review by the Food Directorate of Health Canada’s Health Protection Branch for a decade now, and there’s no estimate from either hpb or p&g when that review will be completed.

That’s not surprising, considering that the data submitted – 150,000 pages worth – is enough to fill a tractor trailer. And that more pages continue to be added as the hpb requests more information or as new data becomes available.

It took nearly nine years for Olestra to be approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

While the fda ultimately had a team of people studying olestra, Canada’s hpb has assigned only one person to the file and it is not known whether Olestra is his or her sole responsibility.

The Olestra submission is a precedent-setting one, both for its size and the nature of the ingredient. Most foods submitted to hpb for approval are flavorings or seasonings – ingredients which account for only a few parts per million in a finished food product. Olestra can replace all the fat in snack foods, which, in the case of potato chips, works out to about 30%.

p&g started developing Olestra, a synthetic mixture of sugar and vegetable oil, about 30 years ago, and invested more than us$200 million in its development.

When the fda issued its approval in January 1996, it limited the use of olestra to certain snack foods and required that essential vitamins a, d, e and k be added.

It also made carriage of the following statement compulsory on all products containing olestra: ‘This product contains olestra. Olestra may cause abdominal cramping and loose stools. Olestra inhibits the absorption of some vitamins and other nutrients. Vitamins a, d, e and k have been added.’

These side effects are caused by the very property that makes olestra fat-free – the fact that it passes through the body undigested.

Opponents of olestra expressed surprise that the fda approved the product in light of their knowledge of these effects.