I will be making a cheese ball for the office, but I know many of the people at work are watching their calories. Without getting into all the nutritional added-starch discussion, could I use fat free, or will it taste funny or have a weird texture?
It’s a cold cheese ball which doesn’t get cooked.
To me, fat free cream cheese has a poor taste and texture–like spreadable chalk. Cream cream with 1/3 the fat is okay, though, for this kind of thing.
Fat free cream cheese tastes like plastic. At best.
Once you cover it in chocolate, it is not so bad. 
Agreed, fat free cream cheese simply won’t work. You need at least some fat content. I’d suggest either reduced fat cream cheese or American-style Neufchatel. Mascarpone might work as well, but I’ve never tried it and it’s probably too expensive for your needs anyway.
“Watching calories” does not necessarily mean “Watching fat.” Lots of people do low-carb nowadays, in which case the normal cream cheese might be equal or better for their diet than the low-fat version.
And besides, as others have said, fat-free cream cheese is inedible. If you really want to help people with their diets, don’t do a cheese ball. Do something like veggies and a healthy dip or a salad type thing instead.
Seconding the suggestion for (American style) Neufchâtel. It’s right there next to the cream cheese. It’s usually the same price. It’s actual cheese, not full of thickeners and gums like nonfat cream cheese. It’s slightly moister than cream cheese, but that should actually work to your advantage for making a cheese ball.
There are some things that should never be fat-free…and cheese is one of them. The low-fat version even has some texture issues in some cheeseballs but that would be as far as I would go in the fat-removal quest.
I third the suggestion to use Neufchâtel cheese – it’s yummy.
thanks for the help. I have tried fat free versions of some things, and I like reduced fat cream cheese, but never knowingly had fat free cream cheese. It’s something I might do on my own, but don’t want to wreck everyone’s halloween by testing it out on them. That would just be wrong.
Even if I did use FF, the dieters wouldn’t know without a note, and wouldn’t eat it anyway…
Fat free cream cheese is horrible, I’d never purchase it again.
Late to the party but I’ll chime in anyway: Do not do it. It’s just one of those things where fat-free is not an option.
To add value to the post, if this is for a Halloween party, please make it a cheese skull. I did that one year and it’s pretty fun. 