From mstaben@pullman.comTue Feb  6 00:59:19 1996
Date: Mon, 05 Feb 1996 18:01:43 -0800
From: Mark/Mary Staben <mstaben@pullman.com>
To: Marc Safley <SCSNET.SCS1.MSafley@sies.wsc.ag.gov>
Cc: sanet-mg@amani.ces.ncsu.edu
Subject: Re: Olestra

Marc Safley wrote:
> 
> After reading material about Olestra(tm) I do not think it is a polyester as
> a previous message declared.  It is, rather, an undigestible fat.
> 
> Marc Safley
> msafley@usda.gov

Sorry Marc, Olestra is a polyester regardless of what you think.
Please see below:

{excerpted from TIME Magazine, "ARE WE READY FOR FAT-FREE FAT?" 
By MICHAEL D. LEMONICK 
January 8, 1996 Volume 147, No. 2}

...They eventually came up with sucrose polyester, a class of
compounds that sports as many as eight fatty acids crowded around 
alcohol groups that hang, in turn, off a ring of sucrose
molecules. By contrast, the naturally occurring fats known as 
triglycerides include just three fatty acids. 

Why does the body digest and absorb triglycerides but not a sucrose 
polyester such as olestra? Both types of molecule,
explains P&G chemist Ron Janacek, are too large to pass unaltered 
through the mucous membrane of the small intestine and
into the bloodstream. With triglycerides, an intestinal enzyme known as 
lipase acts as a kind of molecular scissors, fitting
into slots between the fatty acids and snipping them apart. But when 
there are too many fatty acids clumped too close
together, as happens with olestra and other types of sucrose polyester, 
these slots are concealed and the enzyme cannot do its
job.

For full text of article: 
http://pathfinder.com/@@TxsMuYHfQQAAQFuL/time/magazine/domestic/1996/960
108/cover.html
