Top 5 Ingredients to Avoid in Store-Bought Salad Dressings
Whether your eating salad to lose weight or improve your overall health, making your own homemade salad with a healthy salad dressing is a great way to get your leafy greens in. However, if you are choosing store-bought salad dressings, and not pay attention to the ingredients, the dressing may be the reason you’re body isn’t agreeing with the salad or your waistline is not shrinking.
In fact, many bottled salad dressings are jam-packed with bloating amounts of salt and sugar, along with sketchy dyes and preservatives. Nothing upsets me more than when I’m at a restaurant, order a salad, and then they top it with a processed liquid they call salad dressing. (Big shout our to all the restaurants that make their own dressings. I appreciate you!!) When evaluating store-bought dressings, some of the worst brands I noticed were Kraft, Wishbone, Ken’s Steakhouse, and Hidden Valley. Yes, that ranch dressing will destroy your healthy salad.
So why not educate yourself so you can stop tainting your nutritious salad with these toxic ingredients? Below, I compiled a list of the top 5 ingredients to avoid when choosing store bought dressings!
Top 5 Ingredients to Avoid
Monosodium glutamate (MSG)
MSG is a common food additive used to enhance flavor in a variety of foods. Canned vegetables, frozen entrées, fast foods, spices, and soups are just a few products that contain MSG. Many people have experienced a variety of side effects, which range from headaches, itchy skin, and dizziness to respiratory, digestive, circulatory, and coronary issues.
High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS)
HFCS is a highly refined sweetener that’s found in most processed foods. This additive is so calorie-dense it’s one of the major contributors to the obesity epidemic. Like trans fats, it raises bad cholesterol levels and can lead to diabetes.
Refined Vegetable Oils (Soybean Oil & Canola Oil)
Polyunsaturated fats are highly unstable and they oxidize easily. These oxidized fats cause inflammation and mutation in cells. That oxidation is linked to all sorts of issues from cancer, heart disease, endometriosis, PCOS, etc.
Artificial Color/ Caramel Color
The blues, reds, yellows, and greens you commonly see in yogurts, cereals, and juices don’t come from natural sources. In fact, food coloring is usually a synthetic chemical produced by scientists to color foods and increase a product’s visual appeal. Many colorings are derived from coal tar and can contain up to 10 parts per million of lead and arsenic, but still be recognized as safe by the FDA. Artificial colors can cause allergic reactions and increase hyperactivity in children with ADD. Caramel color has also been linked to certain kinds of cancer.
Polysorbate 60
It's a thickener, stabilizer, and foaming agent often used in powdered mixes (think baked goods, gelatin, drinks). It has been correlated with reduction in fertility, and shown to cause cancer in laboratory animals.
Moral of the story, when It comes to salad dressings I always recommend making your own. It can be an simple as lemon juice, olive oil, and apple cider vinegar. However, if you are in a bind or on the go and you need to purchase store-bought dressings, make sure to read the ingredient list. If you see any toxic ingredients, put it back on the shelf and find a better option.
When I need to buy store-bought dressing, my go to is Primal Kitchen. All of there dressings are gluten free, soy & canola oil free, dairy free, and some are even sugar free! If you grocery shop in the Dubuque, IA area, you can find these dressing in the Health Food section at Hy-Vee or Natural Grocers.
~Andrea