by Always Wonder

Created on: February 01, 2009

A dressing is added to a dish to make a rather bland assortment of foods a little bit more fun and also a little bit special and different every time. Moreover, dressings are used to add many micro - nutrients to a dish that are so important for a wholesome diet.

We've grown up with the lesson that, to achieve this, one needs to add some fat. Therefore most of the classic dressings are quite high in fat content. Since fat is the macro - nutrients that delivers most of calories (9 kcal per 1 gramm), one can say that classic dressings usually fatten up a salad and transform a healthy, light dish into a caloric meal.

However - this picture is not the whole story.

First of all, not every kind of oil is necessarily bad. This is a well established fact today. For example, oils that are high in unsaturated fatty acids (such as linseed oil) are vital for bodily functions and must be consumed in form of food because the body cannot generate them. Furthermore, these oils are highly volatile under high temperatures, hence must be taken with "cold" foods and are best served in dressings.

Secondly, there are a number of low - fat alternatives today to make a very tasty dressing. The secret is to know which components of fat are important and therefore needs to be preserved when omitting it. One of them is the property of fat as a flavour enhancer. This can be replaced with components carrying a dense flavour, such as mustard or tomato puree. Also, the flavour can be toped and and in addition be made much more a healthy aspect by adding fresh herbs and condiments such as pickled ginger. The other property that needs to be preserved is the emulsifying effect of fat. This can be achieved by adding low- fat yogurt which serves very well as an emulsifier. The third component of fat that is so important is that it is extremely satiable. This can be taken over very well by food rich in protein and low in fat, such as grilled chicken, lean lamb, king prawns, tuna or something similar.

Over the last years I have enjoyed a variety of extremely healthy yet delicious salads without omittin the dressing. This is due mainly to the fact that classical, fattening dressings can in fact be replaced by light, creamy dressings that are rhich in flavour. Not only that, those traditional dressings can also be brought up to modern times by inventing them new with lighter components. There is no reason why dressings have to be fattening.

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