About three months ago I began dieting and I was looking for a healthier alternative to butter and margarine. I started browsing through the butter selection at my local grocery store and those bottles of liquid spray butters caught my attention. Initially I just assumed that they were very high in fat, cholesterol and calories, but after checking them out (“Parkay” and “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter” to be specific) both products claimed to be fat free, calorie free and cholesterol free. Could this be true?, I thought to myself. Surely if they are indeed fat free and have no calories, they won’t compare to the taste that you get out of regular solid butter and margarine. I decided that I would give them a try, as both brands were on sale for a dollar per bottle.

The next day I was hungry for a little mid-day snack, so I decided to fix a can of green beans. Normally, I would just eat the green beans plain, to keep the calories to a minimal amount. I decided that today I would try putting a little liquid butter spray on the green beans to give them a little flavor for a change. I gave the bottle a few pumps and lightly coated the bowl of green beans with the butter spray. After taking the first bite, I loved it. I had finally found the perfect fat free topping to transform the taste of my dull, plain diet foods.

After trying the butter spray for that first time, I was hooked. I was using the stuff on nearly everything that I fixed, and I was using quite a bit more than just a few pumps. You can’t even imagine the taste of green beans smothered in butter if you haven’t tried it. Every time I fixed green beans, I was actually removing the spray cap and pouring the liquid butter over the green beans, coating the entire bowl with a thick layer of buttery goodness.

This went on for about two months. I was using the butter at least two or three times a week, and not in moderation. My main snack since starting the diet was always green beans. Green beans contain about 60 calories per can, making it the perfect snack. You can eat about as many as you want and still lose weight. I was very content eating green beans with my new-found, great-tasting fat free addition. Until about 3 weeks ago.

I had a doctors appointment on March 12th. The appointment was just to get some blood work ordered, to check my cholesterol and that sort of thing. While I was talking to my doctor, I mentioned that I had been using the great tasting butter spray and how it’s fat free and contains no calories. My doctor was very quick to tell me that he has seen several patients fall for this “fat free” butter spray scam. He began to inform me that a regular size bottle of the spray butter actually contains around 90 grams of fat and that it was anything but low in calories. He told me that the serving size listed on the bottle was about one spray worth of the butter, which might indeed contain no fat or calories, due to the minuscule amount of the butter that you’re actually using in 1 spray. This is why the product is so misleading. People look at the nutritional facts of the butter sprays and see that everything has a value of zero. Zero fat, zero calories, zero cholesterol, zero everything.

Everyone assumes that it truly is a fat free alternative to using butter and margarine, when in fact, it’s just as bad or even worse, considering that people really over use it and think that it’s going to help with weight loss. I’m just glad that I stopped using it when I did. I probably consumed around four to five bottles of it over the span of 2 months time. Someone’s health could really be affected by not knowing that it’s just as bad as eating regular butter or margarine. I personally recommended it to several friends and members of my family after I tried it.

I don’t believe that they should be allowed to advertise these products as containing zero fat and zero calories. They say very bold right on the front of the bottle, “0 Calories”. This would be like a beer company marketing their product as being safe to constantly over-indulge in, without having to worry about the adverse health affects associated with it. It would be no different than a cigarette company telling people that their cigarette is safer than other cigarettes, because they only expect you to take one puff, rather than smoking the entire cigarette.

I hope this will reach a few people who have been duped into using these so-called fat free butter sprays. If you know someone who uses products like these, thinking they contain zero fat or calories, please be sure that they actually research the products before using them. I am sure that other companies try and get by with the same kind of trickery.

If you know of another product that is advertised as being healthy or fat free, don’t hesitate to post a comment and let me know about it. I will check it out if I am able to and write something about it.