Dressing Properly

The last few blogs we’ve talked about healthy foods, specifically salads, that taste good and provide vital nutrients that our bodies need. We also talked about how salads can quickly become unhealthy with the wrong salad dressing. Let’s dig a little deeper…

What doesn’t taste better on a salad than a flavorful and creamy salad dressing? It’s like the icing on the cake. We enjoy the creamy texture and mouthfeel, as well as the flavors that pop from herbs and fruits, the crunchiness of toppings such as nuts and seeds, and wrap it all up with robust and savory smells that enhance the flavor. This is like sensory overload. Are you getting hungry? I am.

To maintain the health benefits of eating our salad, we look to top it with a salad dressing that tastes good and is equally healthy. Well, here’s the thing… we’ve been conditioned over the last few decades to believe that food labels such as: light, low-fat, calorie-free, and sugar-free are good for us. So, a salad dressing with a label such as these should be okay to put on our healthy salad, right? In many cases, this is completely wrong. Several salad dressings with these labels add tons of calories, sugar and inflammatory vegetable oils. This defeats the whole purpose of eating that healthy salad. You might as well eat a candy bar.

The number one salad dressing in the US is ranch. We like to put ranch dressing on everything from salad to fries, chicken wings, sandwiches and more. It makes everything taste good! Unless you make it homemade, many ranch dressings contain heart-stopping saturated fats and salt. In fact, a lot of salad dressings with the labels used above contain large amounts of salt and fat. If it is fat-free, sugar or high fructose corn syrup are added to improve the taste. Your salad dressing could have more sodium in just one serving that you would get if you ate two bags of Lay’s Classic Potato Chips, not to mention the high fat content. Pass the chips.

Check out our two-part blog, “Boost your health with a salad each day,” for ways to keep your salads healthy and taste good. The healthiest dressings will be vinaigrette based with balsamic or vinegar and oil. Olive oil is considered be one of the healthiest oils to top your salad with. If you prefer creamy salad dressings, swap out the mayonnaise or cream with Greek yogurt. Homemade dressings will always be your best bet.

If you are a manufacturer of salad dressings, we have an alternative. Reach out to us for samples of our products. We have plant- based flavor solutions, sensory enhancers, and clean label solutions to reduce the salt and fat in your salad dressings while maintaining a great taste! It’s a win-win.