HEALTH AND NUTRITION: Salad Dressings

[Guest guest]

By good luck, this morning's email brought in Dr Greger's September 2004

Newsletter. An article on fat and salad dressings led the rest! I thought some

of you would be interested, so I copy it in below.

 

Best,

Pat ;=)

 

Full-Fat Salad Dressings Healthier than Fat-Free

 

There is a misconception in the vegetarian movement that all fat is

bad for you. In reality, there are good fats (those found in nuts),

bad fats (saturated animal fat), great fats (omega-3's found in flax

seeds) and killer fats (trans fats found in both animal fat and

hydrogenated oils used in processed foods). Although experiments on

nonhuman animals show conflicting results (as usual), the human data

is quite good. For example in the Harvard Nurse's Study, after

following over 75,000 women for a decade, those that put oil and

vinegar dressing on their daily salad had less than half the cardiac

mortality compared to those who, for instance, used fat-free

dressings. They cut their risk of dying from a fatal heart attack in

half with Italian dressing! Those that used dairy or egg-based creamy

dressings, of course, had zero benefit.[1]

 

Canola oil-based salad dressings are an important source of omega-3

fatty acids in this country. For example, one tablespoon of Annie's

Goddess Dressing contains about 25% of your daily recommended omega-3

intake--add a tablespoon of ground flax seeds or a handful of walnuts

to your salad and you're basically set for the day.

 

The Harvard researchers are concerned about people switching over to

fat-free dressings. They conclude their report with the sentence " Our

findings suggest that a reduction in consumption of foods such as

oil-based salad dressings... may increase the risk of fatal ischemic

heart disease. " [2]

 

Eating a source of fat with your salad greens (or any vegetable for

that matter), also helps the absorption of critical nutrients. Your

intestines require the presence of fat to absorb carotenoid

phytonutrients like beta-carotene and lycopene. A new study published

in the August issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition

found that fat is essential.[3]

 

Researchers at the University of Iowa gave people nice salads

containing spinach, romaine lettuce, grated carrots and cherry

tomatoes. With the dark green leafy spinach in there, the salad was

just packed with cancer-fighting antioxidant carotenoids, but it's

not what you eat, it's what you absorb. And the researchers found

that " Essentially no absorption of carotenoids was observed when

salads with fat-free salad dressings were consumed. " So be sure to

include some source of fat at your meals. The healthiest sources of

fat, of course, are from unrefined whole foods. So by adding nuts and

seeds or avocado to your meal you not only get all their nutritional

benefit, but you enhance your absorption of other nutrients in the

rest of the meal.

 

Don't be a fatphobe