Lite Dressings

Nemo

I eat salad every day. Many salad dressings have lite, low-calorie versions. Some lite versions taste about the same as the full-calorie original, while some taste worse. That is one criteria for me when choosing.

My question is whether it is better nutritionally to use a lite version or to stick with the original, higher-calorie dressing . My goal is to keep my saturated fat intake to no more than10% of total calories. I understand that not all saturated fats are created equal, and that saturated fat in red meat is more harmful than the same amount of saturated fat from dairy products.

Susan_RD_101

@Nemo

The salad dressing you choose ultimately depends on what your goals are. If you are interested in losing weight, calories matter, so choose the salad dressing with the lowest calorie content. However, sometimes people add +++ salad dressing because it's the light version, so it's worth paying attention to the amount you use.

Saturated fat and health outcomes is a very confusing and contradictory area of nutrition. The greatest issue is that nutrition research seems to take place in a bubble, meaning that we might hear that saturated fat has less of an impact on one problem (such as heart disease) but an increased impact on another (such as cancer). Ultimately, I think that the accumulation of research suggests that for overall health (which considers lowering our risk of all disease states), we should aim for an intake of less than 10% calories from saturated fat (which includes both dairy and meat).

Kind regards,