Fat contributes 35 to 40 percent of the daily caloric intake of Americans. Most physicians agree that a far healthier level would be no more than 30 percent. As public awareness of the need to cut fat intake increased, food manufacturers saw the developing possibility of a large, new market: fat substitutes. Starting in the 1960s, some companies developed carbohydrate-based fat replacers. For example, Hellman's Light mayonnaise used emulsified starch. These kinds of fat substitutes have only 1 to 4 calories per gram, compared to 9 calories per gram of fat. Still the most widely used replacements for fat, carbohydrate-based substitutes are identified on food labels as dextrins, maltodextrins, modified food starches, polydextrose, cellulose, and various gums.

In the 1980s, the NutraSweet Company (a subsidiary of Monsanto headquartered in Deerfield, Illinois) became especially interested in fat substitutes because the patents on its main money-maker, the artificial sweetener NutraSweet, would start expiring in...