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Who hasn't read an article proclaiming that most salad dressings make salad so fattening that it's healthier to stick with Big Macs? To the average dieter, this is the break they were looking for. Before you can say "Hold the mayo" they've jumped in their car and are halfway to McDonald's, completely having fallen off the salad train.

What these articles don't tell you, of course, is that not all calories are the same. A Big Mac has about 540 calories, 30 grams of fat (10 calories saturated fat), and 1010 milligrams of sodium. The Big Mac has no vitamin A and only 1% RDA of vitamin C.

Now let's compare that to a tossed salad, comprised of fresh mixed vegetables including lettuce, tomatoes, onions, cucumbers, carrots, and broccoli: If we made a generously oversized salad using 5 cups of these mixed veggies this would put us, pre-dressing, at just 100 calories, with fewer than one gram of fat, and only about a hundred milligrams of sodium. Vitamin-wise, a salad of this size comes in at an off-the-charts 300% RDA of vitamin C, and 160% RDA of vitamin A. Also, unlike most fast foods, vegetables are famous for being high in fiber, something which most people lack in their diets.

This means that even if you added some high fat dressing to the salad, you would still have a much healthier meal than a Big Mac, Whopper, or similar fast food sandwich.

Now let's look at the makeup of average salad dressings: A traditional, popular choice is vinaigrette. Normally made of olive oil and vinegar with some spices or mustard added, vinaigrettes are actually quite healthy. Olive oil and canola oil (another popular choice for vinaigrettes, since canola oil is less expensive than olive oil) each have about 125 calories per tablespoon, so if you add four tablespoons of dressing to your salad, that is about 250 calories, since the vinegar that normally accounts for about half the dressing has no calories. That's still almost 200 calories less than the Big Mac (and you KNOW you were going to order some fries with the Big Mac, which would add 380 calories and 20 grams of fat if you were "good" and got the medium instead of the large).

If adding 250 calories to an otherwise nearly calorie-less meal doesn't sound good to you, an option is to make your own dressing and increase the vinegar to oil ratio in order to cut down on calories. Even ranch dressing, which is traditionally thought of as very fattening, can be healthy if you make it yourself with one of those ranch dressing powder packets and substitute milk and a little plain yogurt for the mayonnaise and buttermilk.

If you are eating on the go, there are numerous low-fat and fat-free dressing options also. I think every fast-food restaurant in America offers raspberry vinaigrette that is low in calories or a low-fat French.

The important thing to remember is that even if the only dressing choices are high in fat, it's up to you how much you use, and you are still probably eating a much healthier meal by choosing a salad over a burger and fries.

Learn more about this author, Holly B.
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