I went to Subway for lunch today and decided to get a different kind of Lay's potato chips.  I usually get the Baked ones, but a new package caught my eye:  Lay's Light.  I picked up both bags and compared ingredients and nutrition information.  Baked Lay's have a little fat; Lay's Light have none.  I didn't see any Partially Hydrogenated nonsense in the ingredients of either, so I decided to go for the Lay's Light.  As I was eating them, I flipped the bag over again to check out the ingredients one more time.  That's when I saw it:  "Ingredients:  Potatoes, Olestra, Salt..." 

Olestra is an artificial fat created by Proctor and Gamble in the 1960s.  It became widely known in 1996 when it was approved by the FDA and used in some potato chips.  The one caveat was that the potato chip bag had to include this warning from the FDA: 

This Product Contains Olestra. Olestra may cause abdominal cramping and loose stools. Olestra inhibits the absorption of some vitamins and other nutrients. Vitamins A, D, E, and K have been added.

This was obviously bad news for products that contained Olestra.  Loose stools aren't a particularly desirable thing, and this awkward yet funny topic spawned countless jokes and parodies.  But in 2003, the FDA lifted the requirement for this warning label, and Lay's has since come out with their new brand of Light potato chips. 

So now that I ate the whole bag, all I can do is wait to see what happens.  The FDA removed the warning label requirement because a study was done that showed that only a small number of people experience an increase in "bowel movement frequency".  I'm hoping I'm not one of those few people.