Salads offer a fantastic way to get some more vegetables into your eating pattern. However, the dressing you pour on your salad can add a lot of unexpected calories, fat, sugar, and more!
Italian dressing is generally the most calorie-dense. In terms of sugars, honey mustard packs the most, with 6 grams of sugar in a single 2 tablespoon serving. If you’re watching sodium, be sure to note the heavyweights in the sodium division — Italian, lite Italian, and thousand island. Finally, Italian, Caesar, bleu cheese, French, and thousand island all have the most saturated fat.
For a zippy alternative to heavy dressings, add lemon juice to your salad instead! It contains only 7 calories for the same serving size as the dressings above.
By Judy Doherty, BS, PC II