Monday, March 28, 2011

Damn, PAM

pam

Saw a couple interesting articles relating to PAM Cooking Spray.  Here’s an excerpt from the first one:

Question: How can a product that is almost pure fat be advertised as Fat Free?
Answer: By reducing the serving size so that the amount of fat per serving is less than 0.5 grams.

The primary ingredient of the PAM Cooking spray illustrated here is canola oil, which is marked with a note 'ADDS A TRIVIAL AMOUNT OF FAT' and the Nutrition Facts proclaim: Total Fat 0g.  Why?  Because the serving size has been defined to be a 1/3 second spray containing 0.266g of product. Since this is less than half a gram (0.5g) per serving, it can be rounded to zero. The line above the Nutrition Facts, states that 'A 1 SECOND SPRAY COVERS A 10" SKILLET'. A one-second spray would contain approximately 0.8g of fat with 7 calories and would have to be reported on the Nutrition Facts. The manufacturer has chosen to reduce the serving size in order to avoid reporting the fat in the Nutrition Facts and to be able to add the slogan "for Fat Free Cooking" in the front of the can. Technically, this complies with the FDA requirements.

By the way, if you care about such things, all PAM products are gluten-free except PAM for BAKING.  Manufacturer Con-Agra advises that PAM for BAKING contains actual wheat flour.

The second article, about unconventional uses for the spray, was by Heather Craven on the DIY Life website HERE.  I thought uses listed in the comments were at least as clever and innovative as the article.

I have heard that spraying tools with PAM prior to a dirty job makes for an easier clean up, but I’ve never actually tried it. 

What unconventional uses do you have for PAM?

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