Salad Dressing (French or Italian)

Food · Pantry & Condiment · Food, Typed Supps

The fat is the part doing you a favour. It’s the fat-free version that costs you.

Stage by stage

The fat (Mouth): Nearly 20 g per 100 g — the ingredient the fat-free versions remove.
Emulsion (Stomach): Fat and bile form the micelles that fat-soluble nutrients have to travel in.
Carotenoids (Small intestine): Without fat in the meal, most of the lutein and beta-carotene passes straight through.
Sodium (Circulation): 970 mg per 100 g — the part of the bottle with no nutritional purpose at all.

Timing

The effect is confined to the meal it is eaten with — the fat has to be present at the same time as the vegetables.

Time to effect

4–8 hrs: Carotenoids from the salad appear in circulation.
That meal only: The absorption effect does not carry over.

Allergens

None of the fourteen major allergens. May contain: Eggs, Milk, Mustard, Sulphites. Derived from what this food is, not from a product label.

Eating patterns

Fits: Vegan, Vegetarian, Pescatarian, Halal, Kosher, Gluten-free. Depends on the product: Low-FODMAP.

Satiety

Not scored: the satiety index is measured on 240 kcal servings, and nobody eats a 240 kcal serving of this. The question does not apply rather than the answer being unknown.

Cost band

Mid — roughly £5 per kg, as a band midpoint rather than a price.

Key nutrients

Vitamin E
Fat
Sodium

Nutrition per 100g

Calories: 227
Protein: 0.1g
Carbohydrate: 11.7g
of which sugars: 11.4g
Fat: 19.6g
of which saturated: 2g
Sodium: 970mg

Food vs. supplement

This is the clearest example in the library of a food that works by making another food work. The dressing’s own nutrition barely matters; what it does to the salad underneath it is the entire point.

Kitchen tip

Oil and vinegar, mixed at the table. It does everything the bottle does for the carotenoids and skips the 970 mg of sodium and 11.4 g of added sugar.

Common myth

“Fat-free dressing is the healthier choice.” In reality: It is the one choice on the shelf that actively costs you something. Lutein, lycopene and beta-carotene are fat-soluble, and controlled feeding studies show salads eaten with fat-free dressing deliver dramatically less of all three. A small amount of ordinary dressing beats a generous amount of fat-free. The parts worth avoiding are the 970 mg of sodium and 11.4 g of added sugar, not the oil.