Love Sour Cream? Now There Are Several Fat-Frugal Alternatives On The Market

Do you still long for sour cream on your baked potato, even though you gave it up long ago because of the fat?

Or maybe you scarf down the sour cream but feel guilty about it.

Now there are several fat-frugal alternatives on the market - low-fat sour cream or fat-free sour cream substitutes.

But if trimming fat is your goal, watch out: At least one alternative - Imo Sour Cream Substitute - has more fat and about as many calories as regular sour cream. It's made without dairy products, an asset for milk-sensitive consumers. But it's not low-fat.

Perhaps because of its fat content, Imo was the easy winner in a taste test of six sour cream alternatives sampled in The Seattle Times test kitchen. In a blind tasting, five Times staffers rated the products from 1 to 5 (the top rating) for taste, texture and eye appeal.

Tasters thought Imo Sour Cream Substitute had the best taste and texture, and it tied for best eye appeal with Land O Lakes No-Fat Sour Cream.

"It looks like nice, thick sour cream," one taster said of the Imo, although another thought it was "too white."

As the chart shows, three fat-free products - Real Dairy No Fat Sour Cream, Knudsen Free Nonfat Sour Cream Alternative and Land O Lakes No-Fat Sour Cream - tied for second place.

Far behind were VitaLite Lite Sour Cream, in fifth place, and Land O Lakes Light Sour Cream, in last. Both of these are low-fat. Tasters didn't like the last product's yellowish color - "it looks like mayonnaise," said one.

The test showed how much individual preferences vary in foods. Although three tasters gave Land O Lakes Light Sour Cream the lowest rating for taste, one gave it the highest rating.

Besides low-fat sour cream or sour-cream substitutes, there are many other low-fat or fat-free topping possibilities for potatoes: salsa, lemon juice and nonfat yogurt, to name a few.

Yogurt can also be used instead of sour cream in dips.

----------------------- SOUR CREAM ALTERNATIVES -----------------------

In a blind taste test, five tasters rated these products from 1 to 5 (the top rating) for eye appeal, taste and texture. Their combined ratings are shown here. Fat and calories are for two tablespoons. Regular sour cream is shown for comparison.

PRODUCT -------

T A S T E T E S T P O I N T S :: N U T R I T I O N

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - :: - - - - - - - - -

Total : Eye : : :: Fat :

points : appeal : Taste : Texture :: (grams) : Calories -------------------------------------::-------------------. Imo Sour Cream Substitute : :: :

62 : 21 : 19 : 22 :: 6 : 50 -------------------------------------::-------------------. Knudsen Free Nonfat Sour Cream Substitute :

50 : 17 : 17 : 16 :: 0 : 18 -------------------------------------::-------------------. Land O Lakes No-Fat Sour Cream :: :

50 : 21 : 11 : 18 :: 0 : 30 -------------------------------------::-------------------. Real Dairy No Fat Sour Cream :: :

50 : 18 : 15 : 17 :: 0 : 14 -------------------------------------::-------------------. VitaLite lite sour cream : :: :

38 : 10 : 14 : 14 :: 2.2 : 40 -------------------------------------::-------------------. Land O Lakes Light Sour Cream :: :

36 : 11 : 12 : 13 :: 2 : 40 -------------------------------------::-------------------. Regular sour cream : : :: :

: : : :: 4.8 : 52 -------------------------------------::-------------------.

Sources: product labels or U.S. Department of Agriculture