Dressed to thrill: less salt, more flavor

Nutrition Action Healthletter, Oct, 2005 by Jayne Hurley, Bonnie Liebman

If salad is a regular fixture on your dinner plate, odds are you have at least a handful of old dressings cluttering up your fridge. You know, the ones that looked so interesting until that first mouthful. (If only they would spoil already, so you could toss the bottles without feeling guilty.)

Or maybe years of failed experiments have led you to stock your pantry with just one or two standbys. Better safe than sorry.

Just don't get too safe. Boredom is not going to boost your intake of greens, peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, and other fresh vegetables. The more variety in your stable of salad dressings, the more salad is going to end up on your plate.

Finding a dressing that's low in saturated fat and calories isn't all that tough. Coming up with one that's also low in sodium and that makes your taste buds beam is another question entirely. How to do it? Get yourself a few dozen heads of lettuce and a few hundred bottles of dressing and dip away. Or sit back and see what happened when we did that.

If your salad dressing excursions begin and end in the aisle with the big-name brands like Kraft, Wishbone, and Ken's Steak House, you may be missing the most exciting end of the market.

These days, some supermarkets put refrigerated salad dressings in (or near) the produce section, while health food or gourmet brands often show up in those sections. Not surprisingly, that's where you'll find some of the best-tasting Best Bites and Honorable Mentions.

We schlepped through more than a half dozen supermarkets looking for healthy dressings that won't end up as fridge clutter. Here's a four-step guide that will help you size up any dressings you encounter, even the smaller, regional brands that aren't in our chart.

1. STEER CLEAR OF EXCESS SODIUM.

A good dressing brings out the flavor of fresh vegetables, rather than smothering them with salt. Yet the big brands typically squeeze some 250 to 500 milligrams of sodium into a modest serving (two tablespoons).

Apparently, they haven't read the Dietary Guidelines for Americans or the reports from the Institute of Medicine (a group of independent scientists who advise the government), which now recommend that most people get no more than 1,500 mg of sodium a day to keep their blood pressure from climbing.

Why squander up to a third of that in a measly two tablespoons of dressing when you can get away with far less? Ken's Steak House Caesar, for example, has 430 mg of sodium. Yet Caesars from Marie's, Naturally Fresh, and Drew's All Natural hover around 150 mg, at no cost to your taste buds.

Our chart ignores any dressing with more than 200 mg of sodium (or 3 grams of saturated fat). Out went every single Kraft, every Hidden Valley we could find, and all but a few flavors of Wishbone, Ken's Steak House, and Newman's Own--the top-selling brands.

Tip: to find less sodium, head for the refrigerator case, where companies like Marie's, Naturally Fresh, and Litehouse turn out rich-tasting dressings. Many replace salt with sweet (Naturally Fresh Honey Mustard) or heat (Litehouse Mild Jalapeno Ranch). They're thicker than most non-refrigerated dressings, and they have a shorter shelf life (a couple of weeks to six months, not the year or more for old standbys like Kraft and Wishbone). But that's a small price to pay for something that will lengthen your shelf life.

2. CONSIDER CALORIES.

Two tablespoons of salad dressing can cost you anywhere from 30 to 200 calories. With a few exceptions--like Lite-house Lite Ranch or Lite Salsa Ranch--taste can get a little unpredictable at the low end. But from 70 to 100 calories, you've got plenty of dressings that will flatter your greens. Some have "Lite" in their names; others don't. Always check the Nutrition Facts label to see how many calories are in two tablespoons.

3. DON'T SWEAT THE SAT FAT.

Most salad dressings are low in saturated fat (no more than 1 gram in a two-tablespoon serving) and are free of trans fat. That's because their fat comes largely from (non-hydrogenated) canola or soy oil. Even dressings that have 2 or 3 grams of sat fat typically get it from those oils, which have enough cholesterol-towering unsaturated fat to neutralize their cholesterol-raising saturated fat.

Ditto for dressings like Blue Cheese or Caesar--often from the refrigerator case--that have cheese, eggs, or other dairy ingredients. Most have enough unsaturated vegetable oil to counter any harm done by their dairy (though oil means calories, so don't get carried away).

4. WATCH YOUR SERVING.

Our Best Bites have no more than 80 calories, 3 grams of saturated fat, and 200 milligrams of sodium (Honorable Mentions have no calorie limit). But that's for just two tablespoons--a pretty modest serving. Pile on any dressing--even one with a double check in our chart--and watch the calories and sodium soar.

The Information for this article was compiled by Heather Jones and Danielle Weinberg. with help from Tamara Goldis

Most poppylar. Try it when you want something sweet on your veggies. It also doubles as a dip for fruit (think Sliced fresh peaches).