Posted on 07/05/2012 12:00:01 PM PDT by James C. Bennett
If you're using fat free dressing on your salad, you're doing it all wrong. According to scientists, you need to eat salad with fat-based dressings to get the most out of the veggies. Having no fat in your salad actually diminishes the benefit from eating vegetables.
This sounds a little crazy, right? But yes, even though fat free dressing has less calories than its fatty filled counterpart, you're not getting the full oomph you want when eating vegetables with skinny dressings. Researchers at Purdue University compared salad eating with dressing that had saturated fat, monounsaturated fat and polyunsaturated fat at three, eight and twenty grams of fat to find which was most effective and discovered that fat is a good thing. The Atlantic says:
Mario Ferruzzi, the lead author of the study and an associate professor of food science at Purdue, said that in order to get more from eating fruits and vegetables, they need to be paired correctly with fat-based dressings.
It turned out that dressing made with monounsaturated fat (olive and canola oil) were easily the most effective, needing the least amount of dressing to get the most amount of health-promoting carotenoids (carotenoids act as antioxidants in our bodies). Carotenoids are found in eating plant foods like vegetables and fruits so it makes sense that we'd want to get as much bang as we can when eating them. Using salad dressing with fat accomplishes that. [Molecular Nutrition & Food Research via The Atlantic, Image Credit: Kamila i Wojtek Cyganek/Shutterstock]
“If I do not want the full oomph, will I be taxed? “
Good one!
Ok for short term but our body needs good carbs to function properly. The human brain needs approx 130 good carbs per day alone.
Best macro's recommended per day by most mainstream nutritionists who are not biased/selling a diet book is 40% protein, 40% good carbs and 20% good fats.
Bloomberg’s next trick will be a ban on all salad dressing.
Not blaming high-fructose corn syrup, I’m blaming sugar in general.
As a society, we consume an insane amount of sugar. Sugar in soft drinks, sugar in our heavily sweetened coffees, sugar in our foods, Hell they’ve even got these new packets that color and flavor your bottle of water with sugar.
Sugar is not bad, and it has its place; but as a society overall, we consume entirely too much sugar. Our fathers and grandfathers grew up on a “meat and potatoes” diet and seldom had issues with cardiovascular disease, Diabetes, strokes, Crohn’s disease, etc. Sugar can be linked to many more problems than can fat (mono, poly, unsat) or protein.
I speak from experience having shed 135 lb. in 16 months and keeping it off for more than 5 years on a strictly low-carb, no sugar diet.
I do too as most of it tastes terrible and after several years we find out it is worse for us than the real thing.
Most carbohydrates should come from complex carbs such as brown rice, quinoa, and high fiber grains. Anything that digests slowly is better than the quick-absorption garbage out there now.
Did you know that there are 2 teaspoons of sugar in every slice of your avg. loaf of white bread? Imagine eating 2 tsps of sugar instead of that bread. Same thing. I’ve cut out bread almost exclusively.
add a scoop of mayo, sour cream or buttermilk and you’ll be ok!!!
Sugar in natural context (in fruits, or honey) is better in the diet than extracted sugars. BTW I thought those little packets were sweetened with aspartame.
Good for you!!! But I do think you should be eating some good carbs every day... Do you lift weights? Have a good cardio program? Very important for cardio and joint health and keep lean muscle.
We still talking about dressings?
When the food producers attempt to fake out fat, usually they produce something that tastes like it came from a test tube.
There are things like fat free raspberry vinaigrette which are pretty darn good. If used on a salad at a meal that will contain other fats, it doesn’t cheat you of anything to use it.
Oh don’t get me started on aspartame!
And I apologize profusely, I completely omitted fruits and even dairy. Naturally occurring sugars paired with fiber are an acceptable amalgamation. The fiber is the key.
Extracted sugars are generally bad for the body with one notable exception being for those running marathons, playing sports actively, or competing since they are the quickest bio-available nutrients.
What about low sodium salt?
45 minutes of cardio and calisthenics per day, 90 minutes of weight training twice a week, tae kwon do, kayaking, bicycling, and yard work keep me going.
I eat carbs but very sparingly. I’ll eat rice or pasta the nights before my weight training days and don’t generally pay attention to ingredient lists since I don’t eat anything from a bag or a box as a overarching rule.
Things like milk, cheese and quinoa give me good carbohydrates paired with heavy whole fruit consumption.
Thanks for posting this. After 30 years of misery and having been put on all kinds of diets, including ‘no fat’ (and darn near died at 84 lbs!) they’ve found I am ‘fructose intolerant’..the culprit was sugar, not fat.
I like aspartame and it likes me. The second relationship is not true for many other people, however. Some are sensitive. They should not consume it. (Doctor, it hurts when I do that. Well don’t do that!)
Yep that is what I eat also lot's of sweet potatoes . I do eat some quick, fast burning carbs every so often for a super grueling workout session or a triathalon etc for energy.
Did you know that there are 2 teaspoons of sugar in every slice of your avg. loaf of white bread? Imagine eating 2 tsps of sugar instead of that bread. Same thing.
Yes, sugar is nasty.. I only eat junk food maybe 5-6 times per year if that. Eat super clean. Have not had white bread in years. My only vice is a diet Coke Zero every so often and trying to wean myself off of that.
I went for years tolerating very dull headaches that even aspirin/acetaminophen/ibuprofen wouldn’t cure. I had gastro problems as well, usually tolerable but sometimes severe.
After a suggestion by my GP, I cut out all soda for 3 weeks to see how I responded. After the first week, the headache was completely gone and my regularity returned to normal. I haven’t touched soda again.
If people only knew how nasty that stuff is. Good article for people who are interested.
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/11/06/aspartame-most-dangerous-substance-added-to-food.aspx
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