Dangerous Salad Dressing Facts and 6 Favorite Salad Dressing Recipes
2014
One of the often overlooked foods that can make a huge impact on your health is the salad dressings that you use. It’s so easy to blend up a bottle of homemade dressing. Really, you just add ingredients to a blender and blend. But it’s also easy to just pick up a pre-made bottle off the shelf and convince yourself that a little dressing won’t hurt you. Most people do it. The problem is that store bought salad dressings can be the worse culprits in bringing your health down. Some of the most unhealthy ingredients can be found in those little plastic bottles that line our store shelves.
“Unfortunately processed food companies have to use their whole arsenal of fats, salts, sugars, fake flavors and colors to make store bought salad dressings have appeal.” ~ Bruce Bradley, author and former food industry exec
Shocking Salad Dressing Facts
Dangerous Fats
One of the first ingredient in any commercial salad dressings is oil and most of the oils used in salad dressings are GMO soy or canola, which have never been tested on human health and are very heavily laden with pesticides.
Trans fats are industrialized fats that can help to extend the shelf life of commercial dressings. They are very appealing to our taste buds. But they are also so dangerous to our health that they are now required to be labelled. And there is a loophole for companies to add it in without telling you. It is that hey don’t have to say it’s in there if it’s under .5 grams per serving, which can be variable. It’s also sometimes even right there on the label anyway uner different names in fine print.
High Fructose and GMO Sweeteners
Store-bought dressings can contain a deceivingly large amount of sweeteners that get added using different names. High fructose corn syrup is one of the most common sweeteners used in non-organic brands.
Harmful Chemicals and Colors
Unhealthy chemicals are often added to salad dressings, including titanium dioxide, a chemical commonly used in the paint industry to make colors look brighter, which it also does in your dressing. However, this chemical sometimes contains lead and is very unhealthy for your body.
MSG, an amino acid that intensified the flavor of foods is commonly added to salad dressings. MSG induces migraines in many people and has been shown in studies to create nerve cell damage in the brain. MSG goes by many other names too. It can be found as hydrolyzed vegetable protein and even s ‘natural flavoring’!
Colors are also added to brighten up your store bought dressings. Yellow #5 and Red #40 are 2 of the more common ones, and both have been found to have seriously adverse effects on human health. Caramel color is also frequently used in many processed foods, including salad dressings and contains 4-methylimidazole, known to cause cancer.
The Good News!
Making your own salad dressing is really easy!
Here are 6 of my favorite healthy salad dressing recipes:
This is my all time favorite basic dressing that is great on any salad you add it to.
This was the house dressing we served at Toronto Sprouts cafe and got responses that people would drink the rest of the dressing from the bowl after they finished their salad. Yes, it’s that good!
I love Caesar Salad! and I have had some serious compliments from raw chefs that I really respect over this dressing. I’m pretty proud of this recipe and I make and enjoy it often.
This goes great on a Fruit and Nut Salad (like strawberry pecan, above). It’s not as sweet as many traditional poppyseed dressings but it has an amazing flavor and I love it.
A classic healthy dressing that you may develop cravings for. I get them! I used this dressing on my first Goddess Bowl. Follow the link above for the dressing to see how to make a delicious Goddess Bowl too!
I love balsamic and to be honest I go through phases where I will just drizzle a few drops of it plain over my salad and eat it just like that. However, this wonderful vinaigrette is easy to make and it’s delicious.
Hope you’ve been inspired to make your own healthful salad dressing and find one here that will become your favorite too!
To your glowing health!
