Globe and Mail, Canada
06-21-06
Choosing a salad dressing can be a weighty decision
LESLIE BECK
If you're trying to eat healthy, a crisp, green salad probably sounds like a
nutritious choice. Plenty of vitamins, minerals, fibre and fewer calories mean that
salads can help control your weight and boost your vegetable intake.
But that all depends on the type of dressing -- and how much -- you drizzle over
your greens. If you're not careful, even a modest dollop of some commercial
salad dressings can put a big dent in your daily fat and sodium intake.
Despite the potential pitfall of using too much dressing, there are plenty of good
reasons to eat salad with your meals. If you choose dark greens as your base -romaine lettuce, red leaf lettuce, spinach, arugula -- you'll add beta-carotene,
folate and even some calcium to your meal. If you toss in other colourful
vegetables such as broccoli florets, shredded carrot, red pepper and beets, you'll
boost your intake of fibre, nutrients and phytochemicals.
Enjoying a salad as your first course might even help you lose weight.
Researchers from Pennsylvania State University found that people who ate three
cups (750 ml) of low-fat salad as a first course consumed 12 per cent less
calories from their meal compared with people who didn't precede their meal with
greens. Starting your meal with a salad full of water- and fibre-rich vegetables
can help dampen your appetite, making it easier to eat less of the main course.
Although dressing can add calories, that doesn't mean you need to swap your
full-fat variety for one that's fat free. It's true you'll save calories -- fat-free
dressings provide between 10 and 70 calories and less than one gram of fat per
two-tablespoon (30 ml) serving. A full-fat dressing, on the other hand, can set
you back as many as 180 calories and 20 grams of fat for the same serving size.
(The main ingredients in most fat-free dressings are water, followed by refined
sugar, vinegar and thickeners.)
Aside from the lack of flavour and gelatinous texture that come with some fat-free
dressings, they can also rob you of antioxidants. That's because oil in salad
dressings helps the body absorb phytochemicals in vegetables called
carotenoids such as beta-carotene, lycopene and lutein. One study at Iowa
State University found that when people ate their salad with fat-free dressing,
they absorbed almost none of the carotenoids. When the salad was eaten with a
reduced-fat dressing, more carotenoids were absorbed. A full-fat dressing led to
an even higher carotenoid absorption.
So, what kind of dressing should you use? Whether it's vinaigrette or creamy, all
salad dressings are made with heart-healthy unsaturated vegetable oils. But
some are healthier than others.
Go for omega-3's. Salad dressings made with canola oil are a good choice
because they're an excellent source of alpha linolenic acid, an omega-3 fat which
may protect the heart. The Nurses' Health Study, which followed almost 90,000
healthy women for 15 years, revealed that those who consumed the most ALA
had a 45 per cent lower risk of dying from heart disease compared with those
who consumed the least. The women in the study got most of their ALA by using
oil-and-vinegar salad dressings at least five times a week. (Canola oil contains
more ALA than soybean oil, which is used in many commercial dressings.) Some
food companies have added other healthy oils to their dressings. Renee's
Wellness dressings are made with canola oil, flaxseed oil (the richest source of
ALA) and some even have fish oil -- ingredients that bump up the omega-3 fat
content. Ruth's Hemp dressings contain hempseed oil, which is high in essential
fats including omega-3 fats.
Only a handful of commercial dressings are made using olive oil, a
monounsaturated fat linked with heart health.
Watch out for sodium. Many salad dressings lose points for having too much
sodium. Most brands squeeze 300 to 400 milligrams of sodium into two
tablespoons of dressing. Some, like President's Choice Italian Vinaigrette, have
as many as 540 mg per two tablespoons -- almost one quarter of your day's
worth of sodium. A high sodium diet can elevate blood pressure, a risk factor for
heart attack, stroke and kidney disease.
Read labels to find brands with fewer than 150 milligrams of sodium per one
tablespoon (15 ml) serving. Salad dressings with the lowest sodium numbers per
serving tend to be fruit-flavoured; PC Blue Menu Mango Fat-fee Vinaigrette has
only four mg of sodium per serving and Compliments Balance Raspberry
Vinaigrette has 45 mg.
Look at calories. If you're watching your weight, pay attention to calories per
serving. Two tablespoons of full-fat salad dressing can cost you anywhere from
90 to 180 calories. If you eat salad every day, choose a dressing that delivers no
more than 50 calories per one tablespoon (15 ml) serving. You don't have to buy
fat-free dressings to trim calories. Many oil- and-vinegar-based dressings contain
no more than 50 calories per serving.
Downsize portions. Of course, how many calories and how much fat and sodium
you add to your salad will ultimately depend upon portion size. The nutrition
numbers on most salad-dressing labels reflect a one tablespoon (15 ml) serving.
If you use more than this, which most people do, multiply the numbers to see
how much you're really consuming. To reduce your portion size, use a measuring
spoon rather than pouring from the bottle.
Leslie Beck, a Toronto-based dietitian at the Medcan Clinic, is on CTV's Canada
AM every Wednesday. Visit her website at lesliebeck.com.