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]
The Food Nazis Were Wrong (again) ping.
I knew my bacon salad was a great idea.
There’s a yogurt based Caesar dressing that is my favorite and it’s reduced fat, not fat-free. I wonder if it has enough fat to provide the effect described here.
I’m sorry but this is the dumbest thing I have ever read. It’s got to be a joke.
Crumbled bacon and blue cheese dressing! Yum!!!
Oh great, there’s an Ooomph tax?
Makes perfect sense to me, a lot of nutrients are fat-soluable, while others are water-soluable.
When does a crumb become half a crumb?
...or Polonium-210 either...........
OMFG THANK YOU! I’ve been beating this drum for over ten years!
Go to any grocer and grab a bottle of fat-free ranch and a bottle of regular ranch. Turn over to the dietary labels. Ignore the fat and look at the sugar content. ANY food without fat is virtually flavorless sans spicing. To replace/supplement flavor, they have to use an agent such as sugar to impart flavor.
Mark my words in this thread on this day: a MAJORITY of findings during the fat-free craze of the 80s will be found to be wholly and completely false over the next decade. SUGAR is the reason we are, as a society, getting so fat.
If you have to look for a XXXX-Free food, look for sugar- free. You’d be better off. Fat imparts flavor, it is a vital nutrient for the absorption of fat-soluble vitamins and minerals, and it is the biggest component to feelings of satiety during a meal.
I quite enjoy a light Italian. There isn’t much fat, but it tastes delicious.
If the salad is going to be consumed with other items at the meal that do have significant fat, like meat or normal cheese, then lowfat or fat free dressing wouldn’t necessarily cheat you of the good stuff.
It seems that the rule that it is best to consume everything in moderation (unless there is a special reason otherwise) has been proven out again.
I'm glad other people "get" this.
There's no such thing as "sugar-soluble" vitamins or minerals. Water and fat are crucial components to cellular metabolism, among other things.
Ever hear of the Atkins diet? Low carb/high protein, high fat diets work.
HFCS gets blamed a lot, and though science hasn’t pinpointed the reason why, there are some provocative suggestions. An excess of fructose is an express road to the creation of fat. And compared to sucrose it’s not as satisfying in a beverage and leads to more after-cravings. If you do use sugar, use plain old cane or beet sugar.
Why should it be a joke? If you ask me, it’s not the fat, but all the artificial ingredients in food these days that will kill you.
Eat real food in moderation. The body understands real food. The artificial stuff just confuses it.
Makes sense, although I am dubious about canola oil. Olive oil has been proven healthy for thousands of years. Canola oil was first suggested by the food Nazis, who nearly always prove wrong in the end.
I don’t KNOW that. But I’ll stick with good old olive oil.
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