The Healthiest Salad Dressing According To Dietitians

Salad dressing doesn’t have a healthy reputation, typically adding lots of calories to a bowl of lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers.

But salad dressing can have health benefits if you choose the right type with certain ingredients and use it in moderation, dietitians say.

The main message is to keep eating all those nutritious greens and vegetables, says dietitian Teresa Fung, Sc.D., co-chair of the department of nutrition at Simmons University in Boston and an adjunct professor at the Harvard School of Public Health.

“I don’t want people to worry about salad dressing to the point that they’re not eating the salad,” Fung tells TODAY.com. “Eat the salad.”

Is bottled salad dressing healthy?

It depends on the ingredients.

There are three main concerns with store-bought salad dressing: sodium, added sugar and high amounts of saturated fat, Fung notes.

“People are aware that you need to watch salt. But what they’re not aware is there’s often a lot of sugar in salad dressings,” says Lisa Young, a registered dietitian in New York and author of “Finally Full, Finally Slim.”

Sugar is added to balance out the flavor and it’s also a preservative, both experts explain. Choose a salad dressing that has no more than 4 grams of added sugar per serving — the equivalent of 1 teaspoon.

“Think about it: If you’re eating a salad, how much sugar does it make sense to throw on top?” Fung notes.

“Would people really eat a salad and then throw a teaspoon of sugar on it?”

If sugar is within the first three ingredients, that’s a red flag, Young adds.

When it comes to salt, most Americans already eat double the recommended daily amount. Check your salad dressing’s nutrition label: A rough guideline is you shouldn’t eat more than 150 milligrams of sodium in a sitting, Fung advises.

Saturated fat can raise LDL cholesterol, which in turn raises the risk of heart disease and stroke, the American Heart Association warns. It suggests eating no more than 13…