[Jimbee (OP)]

Where I live they now sell fat-free coffee cream (or half-and-half as it is also know). What exactly is fat-free coffee cream? Last time I checked, fat-free milk is skim milk. IOW, just plain, ordinary, bland milk with 0% milkfat. Kind of thin and watery too.

Now, I have never tried fat-free coffee cream. But they seem to think it rich and thick like regular cream. How could that be? What makes it taste like cream? And what's in it?

[paul cotter]

Something noxious and devoid of nutrition, I would reckon. Maybe whipped and emulsified bunker oil!

[Bored chemist]

What Exactly Is Fat-Free Coffee Cream?
A reason to drink black coffee.

[paul cotter]

Quite right BC, the full delicious taste of coffee can only be appreciated with black.

[Halc]

Where I live they now sell fat-free coffee cream (or half-and-half as it is also know).

Half & half is 50% cream and 50% whole milk.  Quite natural but hardly fat free.

The 'free' stuff is made by doing weird things to vegetable oil and other chemicals, mostly in effort to get it to look and feel (but not taste) like anything real.  It is indeed noxious and devoid of nutrition.  I've long since learned to buy 'light' this and that (margarine light, light-salted this and that, sour cream lite, etc.  They sell fat/salt/sugar-free variants of many things, and it's all horrible. Avoid the f word at all costs.

One problem of a low salt diet is that you get used to it, and the heavy salt they put in public food makes it unpalatable. For instance, I cannot eat at Hardees or Olive-Garden, not because it's bad for me, but the excessive grease/salt respectively makes me gag.  Food floating in grease and salt was great for the southern climates of the 19 century where those working outdoors need that intake, but it's become part of their culture and few sweat it off like you're supposed to, and it has never really worked for colder climates like where I am.

Last time I checked, fat-free milk is skim milk.

Whole is 4%.  Reduced is 2%.  I drink 1% mostly because they don't sell 1/2% by me.  Skim is 1/4%, not quite fat free, but they round it down.  Yes, it's pretty thin, but if they're out of 1%, I prefer the skim to the 2%, but only because 'free' on the label is a lie.

Similarly, pump butter is almost 100% fat, but is marketed as fat free since they make the serving size so low that it is below the minimum grams of fat needed to report as significant in the nutrition information on the package.

Now, I have never tried fat-free coffee cream.

I accidentally bought one and had to return it under the satisfaction guarantee, something I have done only twice in my life, the other being for a brick of off-brand Velveeta cheese which turned out to be just yellow plastic.

But they seem to think it rich and thick like regular cream. How could that be? What makes it taste like cream?

Thick & rich, yes. Taste like??  Not at all.
They don't sell 'lite' creamer by me, so I've mostly given up on creamer at all in my coffee, and just use something sweet (not sugar free, which tastes noticeably metallic).