Olestra | The Miracle Fat Substitute That Became a Pop-Culture Punchline 

Ate an entire bag once for lunch (poor college student meal), then went to a movie with a friend. 30 minutes in I felt like the biggest fart of my life was coming, so I ducked out to let it rip, and instead I had a devastating ass-plosion in my light colored pants. I walked sideways with my back to the wall of the lobby and made it to my friend's car with burrito glop running down my pant legs. Because this was before cell phones, I couldn't even tell him what happened or that I had to leave, so I'm stuck waiting by the car for 2 hours with a hot load in my shorts turning cold and crusty and no way to do anything. He finally comes out to the car, fuming pissed at me, until I explained everything, which of course became a source of unending LOLs for the rest of our acquaintance. We drove back, me sitting on the rubber side of a floormat, which I wear over my ass like a mudflap to go up to my apartment with God and everybody watching and certainly knowing what happened. Those pants went straight to the outside trash and he tells me to keep the floormat--he does NOT want it back. "WOW!" really does describe these chips.

OMG, we served these at a party and everyone was so excited to try them. They tasted great and we inhaled a couple bags, so stoked to have guilt-free fat. It was as the height of the fat-free craze. You’ll have to forgive me, but I was a victim of circumstance and history. From first and second hand reports, the next day didn’t go so well for many of us. 😬

Those chips! My friend and I decided to go Christmas shopping at an outlet mall 1 hour away. She brought a bag of THOSE new chips along telling me eat as much as I want because it was not fattening as it used a new type of fat. I had never tried them before. We ate a family sized bag in the car on the way there because they tasted very normal. Needless to say the results were disasterous within a few hours. My belly cramps, I felt incredibly gassy and when I tried to get some relief I realized I had a #2 accident. In fact #2 leaked out nearly continuously. We both were very affected. Ruined the shopping trip. We stopped at so many gas stations. I ended up asking for a plastic shopping bag at the gas station quick Mart. Sat on it to avoid soiling her car seat. We had ALL the car windows down in the dead of winter. It was awful and very painful 😖. So embarrassing. We didn't know it was the chips. I assumed it was stomach flu we had shared while eating the chips as we both put our hands in the bag. I missed 2 days of work due to symptoms. I didn't eat chips for a long while after that but then heard it was that olestra. I still don't eat chips.

These chips came out around the time I was in 7th grade and my science teacher at the time, who was in her 70's, told us that there were always a lot of new food fads and when a new product like this comes out, you should always wait to try it until it's been around long enough to see if there are going to be any long term affects. I remember we might have also been talking about Dolly the cloned sheep in class to, at the time. I had no idea how prophetic, what she said, was going to end up being.

When I was a kid I'd often lie about my age to take part in marketing surveys at the local mall for $10 a pop. One of them was for Olestra, specifically the warning labels. I pointed out that the phrase "anal leakage" on a bag of chips might not be very appetizing. I told all my friends, and they thought I'd made the whole thing up until about a year later when Olestra hit the streets.

They should've marketed these as a tasty ExLax alternative 😋

"Warning label" to "no warning label", from 1996 to 2003, reflected the change of a pediatric specialist as FDA head in 1996, a bipartisan appointee, to a business professor in 2003... who also happened to be the press secretary's brother. McClellan's FDA (the no-label-needed crew) infamously made decisions _prior_ to investigation.

I was in some kind of test group for olestra. You were to eat 3 small identical numbered bags of classic potato chips and then record your findings at certain intervals, and finally name the bag that contained olestra and for some of them there was also sunflower oil. The olestra caused havoc with my insides and there was an oily orange discharge. I pooped myself without even realizing it just sitting on the couch. doesn't matter. got $200.

My parents were always pretty strict with my diet and even when this stuff came out we didn't have it in the house, but I do remember "fat free" haribo gummy bears nearly killing me in a similar way once I left home.

My dad worked at Frito Lay for 20 years and we grew up tasting all the new products before they were rolled out nationally. At the same time, my uncle worked at Pillsbury so it's not surprising that our families had obesity issues!

I was a teenager in the late 90s, I remember my mom buying them WOW Doritos a couple times. As I recall they didn't taste too bad. They weren't exactly the same as standard Doritos, if I didn't know they were some new fancy fat free chips I would of thought they were just a generic Doritos knockoff, there wasn't anything too overly weird about them taste or texture wise. I never had any issues with "leakage", but they definitely didn't agree with my guts. I remember plowing through about 2/3s of a bag when I had the afternoon munchies, all was well for maybe an hour or so and then the gurgling started... I sprinted to the bathroom for what was basically a photo finish as I gave anal birth to what looked like a gallon of gravy. Not only did they help ya lose weight by being fat free, they also evacuated every ounce of liquid out of your body all at once... 😳💩🤮💩🤮🥴🤔

I'm just disappointed that the word didn't get out from a Corporate Leaker.

I was a teenager when this came out and I remember my friend and I eating an entire bag while watching a movie. Fast forward a few hours and I could’ve shat through a window screen. I’ll never forget the orange oily remnants in the toilet. It was terrible.

I remember trying that for a week...all kinds of products, and no lie it meant squirting out orange oil slicks. Settled on the bowl and smeared around like what you see settled on the top of a greasy pizza. Wiping was a cruel joke.

Someone needs to invent zero or low saturated fat baked treats. It's depressing when I look at the label for a SINGLE chocolate chip cookie and it has over half of a days worth of fat.... and I feel like I could eat 5 of those cookies.

I was in high school in 98, and my older sister was going to community college, and working a part time job while still living at home with our parents, and I remember her buying a bag of the WoW! chips as she was on a diet ( don't know why, as she's always been skinny except when pregnant), and she had the symptoms after plowing through a bag, ended up missing 3 days of work, and school from it. I'm just glad I never ate the stuff myself YIKES!!!

I choked on my coffee at the phrase "bathroom violence". Thanks for the near death experience!

When I was in 7th grade we went on a weekend class trip, my friend brought a bag of Olestra ruffle chips, we ate them in our hotel room. The next day at the colonial village we were visiting we all had the worst farts of our lives. It was the worst day of my young life at the time as I tried to avoid the girl I had a crush on.

Back 2003-2005 they were still selling Pringles with Olestra and I loved the damn things (they didn't make me go randomly) but that didn't stop my cousin from making a funny jingle everytime he saw me eating a can while playing videogames: "Once you pop, that shit don't stop!" lol

Helped me lose 200 pounds. I had a major chip dependency and addiction. I didn’t poop anymore than I normally did I wish they would come back

Yeah I tried a small amount. I knew what the potential consequences could be, but I was curious. And yes, it's like poopin' oatmeal.

_using fat to treat cholesterol issues is the kind of old school out of the box common sense that I like hearing about, thank you_

They knew full well about the problems with olestra, but what it came down to was they felt it wasn't overall harmful and they needed to recoup all that money from developing it, some revenue was better than nothing. They basically put profit over people.

As an American consumer, I have never trusted "fat free", "low sodium", and anything zero or diet. It all means some form substitution. Idk thats just me though.

My friend ate some of those chips in an elevator, took that shit to the next level.

Olestra was dope. Didn't affect me at all... tasted amazing compared to other low-fat things. But hey tough to get over the hump if too many people be tooting!

OIestra was a lot like those infamous sugar-free Haribo gummy bears* you've probably heard about. They are fine in moderation, but eat too much -- or be too sensitive!, and you are in for a bad belly and bottom time. * and most any other sugar-free candies that also use sugar alcohols!

Absolutely loving this channel, keep up the great work guys

Definitely tried the WoW chips and yes, they had the side effects you described. They were decent chips but after one or two bags you'd pretty much ruled out any other causes. My brother's friend REALLY took a liking to one flavor and just ate them despite the side effects. He was actually sad when they were discontinued.

I remember the Reduced fat/fat free craze of the 90’s when I was a kid. I absolutely hated the way the alternate foods tasted over their regular versions, so when the Wow chips came along, I wanted nothing to do with them. Glad I dodged that bullet.

This sounds pretty dangerous. For the past 6 months I was suffering from gallstones, which means I had to watch my fat consumption or else I would experience a gallbladder attack and would need to be taken to the ER. I was able to eat a very small portion of junk food without reprecussions (i.e. a chocolate chip cookie or a single serving size of chips). But if these chips were still around and I ate some, thinking that they wouldn't harm me, and end up with major digestive issues on top of what I was already suffering because of the stones, I would be so angry.

I remember my neighbor loving WOW chips as a cure for her constant constipation.

Thankfully, I smelled a fish with this product and never ate anything containing Olestra. I always knew it was a bullet to dodge! 🙏🙏🙏

I remember being on vacation with my parents and eating a bunch of these chips. Woke up in the middle of the night like my insides were going to explode. I felt like I was inflated like a balloon.

Fun fact:Olestra is not the only product from this time period that had "anal seepage" or "oily rectal discharge" .......a "natural" Rx diet pill meant to bind fat in the body before it's absorbed was also known to cause this same unfortunate side effect

My parents bought a bag of WOW Doritos when they came out.I was in my mid to late teens.Nobody told me they were Olestra chips,I thought it was just some new Doritos packaging.I was extremely stoned,ate the whole bag.I paid dearly the next day,it was terrible

We are also wired to crave salt as well as sugar and fat.These are items harder to come by in nature,we are wired to take advantage in a foraging situation

If there are videos about ramen and okonomiyaki on Weird History Food, it would be awesome! So please, do videos about them!

I’ve never heard of Olestra. It makes sense why I never heard of it in Canada, it was banned.

I ate a whole bag of these when I was a little kid… I still have never forgotten that day 😂🤪🤯

Funny for a brand like P&G to sell both laxative chips and Pampers diapers. That's a win-win situation for them 😅

I remember it well. The Lay's were ok, but the Doritos were pretty darn good. I was on a diet at the time (went from 250 to 165 in about 7 months). I didn't experience any "issues", but I only ate a small handful at a time.

I remember having these as a kid. Didn't give me any negative effects at all and no one i knew personally said anything bad about them. I didn't know these were bad on the digestive system until I saw the backlash on TV.

Ate these in college (usually the Riffles chip), loved them. Never had any gastrointestinal problems.

Just a reminder that Olestra was approved by the FDA. Regardless of whether a substance is approved by the FDA or not people should always be weary if that thing promises more than it can deliver. Jussayin’

My grandma would buy these kinds of chips, I remember reading the warning on the side of a Pringles can. I believe I did eat some of them, but I don't think I had any adverse reactions lol.

I was working at a Financial Investment company which Frito-Lay was looking for investors, and they sent cases to our offices. Once people heard Anal Leakage, nobody wanted to eat them.

Back in the 90s/2000s, I once consumed a bag of potato chips with Olestra. My gut definitely reacted by - you guessed it - getting cramps and actually I felt more constipated than having diarrhea.

The ice cream was crazy stuff. Tasted weird and gave you the trots like you've never had before.

fat doesn't cause heart disease or high cholesterol. fat is needed for nervous and brain function. it's sugar, carbs and omega 6s in nuts that make blood vessels sticky. eating a good fat rich and low glucose diet ameliorates Alzheimer's

I remember those wow chips... My friends mother was into the 90's diet fad (thigh master, work out vhs tapes and so on and so forth) and tired to get my mother to buy a bag, we did but it had no taste that we threw almost the entire bag away. my friends mother on the other hand was stuck to the toilet for 2 days. That's how my friend and I knew fad diets were dangerous and dumb.

Remember these very well including the very first time having them. Summer holiday gathering several weeks before me and wife were getting married my grandparents brought these to the family function. They were such a hit that my mom and wife went to the local Walmart to pick up several more bags in various flavors before picking up the party platters we had ordered from Subway. Everyone with the exception of my grandpa got sick to some degree. My mom got so sick dad took her to an emergency clinic opened on the holiday and they diagnosed it as food posoining and indicated it was most likely from the food from Subway. It took several months before the news reports started flowing and my family made the connection that it was from these damn chips.

I remember when these hit the streets. I was always wary of new products especially those that sounded too good to be true. Never tried them after a friend had a whole bag at lunch because they weren't fattening, a couple hours later, in class, he had to go home after soiling himself in class. Good times.

I tried them. They didn’t bother me because I didn’t eat a lot of them, but I just remember they weren’t a nice texture - more like Baked Lays or Pringle’s rather than a real chip.

I used to love the WoW ruffles as a kid. My mom was totally into the “low fat” thing. Never had any digestive problems from them

When I was a little kid (early 00’s), I was visiting my aunt and grandparents on a beach trip. My aunt had a bag of Olestra Ruffles out, and dumb little seven year old me, thinking “oh hell yeah I love Ruffles”, ended up spending a full day of that trip in the bathroom. My dad was SO pissed at her leaving that bag out.

I remember eating olestra laced chips. A friend brought some as souvenirs from overseas. It felt like my colon was playing ding dong ditch with my asshole.

All of the substitute terms for pant-shitting such as "do the big nasty" and "bathroom violence" should *not* crack me up as much as it did

My dad did a focus group study on these when I was a kid he got a whole crap ton of chips with the stuff in them. Yeah ne being a kid ate the crop out of a whole bag and I was sitting on the toilet for three days. I learned at nine it's not good. Stuff

When this product came out it almost killed my dad. He had been diagnosed with chronic pancreatitis a few years earlier, which required a very low fat diet. He tried the chips - very few due to the taste - and had to be hospitalized for several days.

I was a sad kid forced into weight watchers before I even hit puberty because of my chubbiness. I ate a ton of these chips because I hadn't been allowed to eat chips in years. Never experienced any adverse effects. I was sad when they were pulled out of stores because that meant I went back to never being allowed to eat chips. At least I had Snackwells 😒

on my first night homeless. this vid really helped me through!!

Would really like to see a video on artificial sweeteners, especially the early attempts form the 60s and 70s.

Reminds me of the warning on all foods/candies that contain sorbitol or maltitol now have to carry warnings on the label, for precisely that reason.

I remember these. I bought these all the time. I never had a problem unless I ate half the bag. I would not be surprised if most of the complaints came from people who over did it and figured they could eat the whole bag since it's "fat free".

Canadian viewer here. On a trip to Florida in 1998 my brother and I consumed an entire bag of olestra ruffles poolside. Hours later, while swimming, I sharted through my bathing suit and was surrounded by Brown murky waters and experiencing the dreaded intestinal distress. To this day, we still laugh about it.

I remember calling these “bowel prep chips”.

One of the running jokes at the time was that the brand named _“Wow!”_ Was the sound you screamed as you ran for the bathroom after eating the snacks.

Another case of following the yellow brick road. When the target number of $ come rolling up, things change. OLEO margarine would be a good one to open up. Thanks!

I had forgotten about Wow chips. It never made me sick, but the warning on the back of the bag was hilarious at the time.

Rule number one: if something is gonna pass through your body without getting digested, its gonna absolutely wreak havoc on your digestive tract on the way out

Gone, _and_ forgotten... thankfully. The AL wasn’t a joke!

Shout out to all you folks who were body conscious teens in the 90’s and ate all the low fat/no fat products out there… 🤦🏼‍♀️🙋‍♀️

As one with gastrointestinal issues, these snacks were a God-send at the time. However, they caused even worse ramifications after the fact. Thank God for air-frying. And would love to hear your take and history of monosodium glutamate or MSG. As of late, that stuff has been sneaking into more and more foods.

this product needed lots of paper work

Never even heard of Olestra. Yikes. I can't imagine eating that stuff with my current IBM issues. 😬

Content suggestion: the history of the dairy industry. Love your videos

My mom is 62 and STILL says “it’s low fat” or “have a healthy breakfast like a bagel” 😂 mom we have LEARNED!!!!!!

*"Hey Apu, you got any of those potato chips that give you diarrhea? I need to do a little **_spring cleaning_** "* - Homer Simpson

A co-worker brought a bag of olean chips to an office party. I was a bit nervous, considering what I'd heard about them, but I did eat a couple. They tasted fine, and I had no bad results --nor did anyone else there as far as I know. But none of us ate very many of them.

Omg I remember this when I was kid and after it’s release all anyone could talk about was the anal leakage 😂 it caused

I was blessed enough to be into some degree of fitness when these came out, and thank God I heard early "rumblings" of problems. 😬

I bought a bag of Wow! Lay’s potato chips. They were OK but tasted a little...off. I had no gastrointestinal distress but the higher price and strange flavor put me off buying any more of those products. The best thing I learned from all this is that fat is not the enemy. "Fat-free" foods are most definitely not healthier options.

Man, that's something. I never knew it existed. Overindulgence and diarrhea. Man, crazy how companies would make products at the expense of people's health.

I weigh less now, while drinking sodas with cane sugar and eating fatty foods but whole grains, than I did 20 years ago drinking diet drinks and eating fat free/olestra foods. Everything like that from the 90s was a scam

Greek yogurt actually has a lot less carbs than regular yogurt. After getting diagnosed as pre-diabetic, going over foods with a dietitian at the hospital, Greek yogurt was recommended, plain with berries (berries having a low glycemic load)

As soon as I saw olestra boom right away I thought of anal leakage 😆 🤣 😂 no lie I worked in a supermarket in Colorado and when we used to stock I would read labels and on one of them said warning this product may cause anal leakage and noticed that all the products that had Olestra lol

My parents considered Wow chips to be akin to poison and we were instructed to avoid the product the same as if it was illicit drugs. Whenever we kids saw someone eating Wow chips we would point, laugh, and tell the Anal Leakage joke.

I remember these fondly lol They tasted so good and were super greasy which my 12 year old self loved. It was the first time I went on a strict diet and I ate all the weird crap like Boca burgers and olestra laced chips.

I lived in one of their little test market cities for olean when I was in high school. I was suspicious of free chips in the mail so I read the label. I threw them away after seeing “loose stool.” Being the target of market research pissed me off too.

There is something kind of along the lines of olestra in food now, it’s called EPG (epogee) fat and it’s relatively new. I have never eaten it before, but it’s an ingredient in Nick’s ice cream

Never tried the stuff, only because of where I lived. However, we did hit New York every summer. My family saw it...and we were avid label readers. Anal WHAT?! My parents were health nuts and were shocked as we watched some dude actually grab some off the shelf. Americans weren't big readers...I think that's how it has STILL managed to survive. When you said it was still in food, it was shocking.

I was camping with 2 young children and I had placed my son's clothes to the zipper exit because it was so hot. At that time I was working a lot and was very conscious of my figure and trying to stay healthy comment it was the nineties after all. So when I Saw a bag of olestra Doritos on a local store shelf I thought it was a gift from was a gift from heaven lol. So after my children fell asleep that night it's a campsite site I inhaled about half of a bag and then crawl to the back of the tent to sleep sleep. Needless to say in the wee hours of the morning or late at night lol, I woke up at defcon 50. There was no squeezing your cheeks there was no 4 warning I warning I was just trying to rip my way out of the tent and I actually broke the zipper In my desperate attempt to get out before soiling everyone in the tent lol. I managed to make my way to a log at the edge of the tree line and hung my behind Over the log and when about my business. Needles to sound there for quite a while. While. However with only a small pen light to make sure that the paper was finally clean when I wiped the 1st time I saw an oily Reddish liquid And thought that I was bleeding.and Promptly freaked out lol. I finally surmise what was happening and figured it out. So I just Defaced part of a park, destroyed a tent, and had a burning butt for about 3 days, so that's my Doritos story and I'm sticking to it lol.

My parents only bought these once, there weren't enough toilets for the 5 of us. So much turbulence in the stomach. It sucked.

Never tried these things... I was racing bicycles semi professionally in late 90s... I NEEDED calories. So the low fat/low calorie thing never really attracted me. I was an eating machine. When you burn 6000 calories a day 5 days of the week... eating a small bag of chips, a gigantic sandwich and a bigass salad is a post ride snack 🤣

"gastro-intestinally distressed in their pants before they could make it to the bathroom" is such a great turn of phrase.

A vid on the history of baby formula and how we got to the current shortage would be weird

I knew a guy who RAN the marketing for Pringles the day olestra came out and ppl were crapping their guts out. This isnt a proper forum for that but funny story.

Back in the late 90’s I was in high school and working after school in a drug store. One night when I was stocking shelves I grabbed a can of Pringles to purchase as a snack. For reasons I don’t remember I looked at the nutrition label and saw that it had Olestra In it and a side effect was anal leakage. I vividly remember anal leakage being printed on the packaging! I ran to show my coworker and we laughed about it. I did not end up buying those Pringles after reading that lol!

i scarfed down a can of Olestra Pringles once.. I couldn't run to the bathroom fast enough