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The 3 Healthiest Bottled Salad Dressings
In a perfect world of empowered eating, we’d make our own salad dressing every single time. After all, it basically only takes thirty seconds and four ingredients to make Keri’s favorite dressing.
But for some people, that extra work means they won’t even bother with a salad. Or, having bottled dressing always ready in the fridge encourages them to snack on raw veggies since they’ve always got something to dip in. Whatever your reason for reaching for the store-bought variety, if you’re going to do so, you’ve got to avoid the ones that totally destroy the incredible bowl of nutrient-dense veggies you’ve prepared.
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First, look for short and simple ingredient lists. Dressings should be made with little more than oil, vinegar, salt, citrus, and a few other real foods you recognize. Try to avoid long lists filled with additives like artificial flavors and colors.
And when it comes to the nutrition facts, don’t worry about grams of fat. Dressings are oil-based so they’re going to be high in fat, and that’s the point—because the fat helps your body absorb the nutrients in the salad itself. You just want that fat to be the healthy kind. (Look for extra-virgin olive, avocado, sunflower, or flaxseed, ideally.) In fact, with dressings, “low-fat” is often a bad thing, because brands that cut fat generally replace it with tons of sugar and salt to make up for the flavor. Avoid dressings with added sugar and try to stay below 200g of sodium per serving.
No time to study labels at the grocery store? We did it for you—and these three companies consistently make the healthiest dressings on the shelf. So reach for these, first.
3 Healthiest Bottled Salad Dressings