7 Best Low Cal Salad Dressings …

7 Best Low Cal Salad Dressings …

I went to a calorie counter website and found out the nutritional information for some of the best tasting salad dressings I’ve tried. An entire page is filled with links to information on the most popular brands. I posted below a list of the 7 best low cal salad dressings that taste great. I’ve had a few in the past that were supposed to be healthy, but they didn’t taste very good at all. If you’re looking for a low cal blend to put on salads, then you might enjoy taking a look at the details in the following list.

7. Ken’s Steak House Lite Raspberry Walnut Vinaigrette – 80 calories per 2 tablespoons

Photo Credit: aisleate.com

The low sodium content in this dressing makes it possible for even my husband to enjoy. There is a total of 125 mg of sodium in each serving. The combination of raspberries and walnuts isn’t for everyone, but my family seems to like it. You can toss chilled pasta in a small amount of this dressing for the perfect summer side dish.

6. Newman’s Own Lighten Up! Honey Mustard – 70 calories per 2 tablespoons

Photo Credit: amazon.com

I use this dressing on chicken salad and it tastes amazing! It is also an excellent dipping sauce for chicken fingers or anything to do with chicken in the recipe. The texture is nice and cream, instead of bright yellow and runny like so many other honey mustard dressings. The low number of calories makes this a great dressing to have on hand at all times.

5. Litehouse Lite Bleu Cheese – 70 calories per 2 tablespoons

Photo Credit: walmart.com

If you are a fan of blue cheese, then you’ll enjoy this low cal dressing. It makes an excellent dipping sauce for hot wings or polenta fries. It’s also a tasty on top of baked chicken or a hot plate of pasta. There is an excellent balance between the amount of salt, total grams of fat, and low levels of carbohydrates. This dressing has a great flavor and I think you should try it at least once.

4. Meijer Fat Free Catalina – 50 calories per 2 tablespoons

Photo Credit: meijer.com

The sweet oniony flavor of this type of dressing goes will with any type of salad. Its tomato base is what gives it the bright orange color. A little goes a long way with this dressing.

3. Kraft Foods Fat Free Ranch Dressing – 48 calories per 2 tablespoons

Photo Credit: amazon.com

I add ranch dressing to eggs when I scramble them, so I always have a bottle handy in the fridge. This low cal variety has 354 mg salt, but I don’t eat eggs every day. I think I can deal with the higher salt content of this dressing every now and then. You can’t beat the taste of ranch dressing in scrambled eggs!

2. Newman’s Own Lighten Up! Lowfat Sesame Ginger – 35 calories per 2 tablespoons

Photo Credit: walmart.com

Although this dressing is extremely low in calories, it has a lot more sodium than other low cal dressings. A single serving of this salad dressing contains 390 mg of salt. I enjoy Asian cuisine, so this is one of my favorite dressings of all. I love the ginger pulp and sesame seeds in every bite.

1. Wish-Bone Fat Free Italian – 20 calories per 2 tablespoons

Photo Credit: amazon.com

This is another high-sodium dressing that is also low in calories. Italian dressing is great for not only salad, but also for marinating chicken, keeping pasta from drying out in a salad, or adding to a sandwich or veggie wrap. With only 20 calories, this seems like an excellent choice for people counting calories.

This is a short list of a variety of dressings for you to learn about. If you are concerned about counting calories or keeping a low-fat diet in check, then any of the 7 best low cal salad dressings listed above might by good to try. What do you look for most of all in a low cal salad dressing, besides the final calorie count?

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8 Reasons to Avoid Fast Food …

8 Reasons to Avoid Fast Food …

As far as I’m concerned, fast food really only has one advantage over home-cooked or restaurant food: it’s fast, hence the name, right? But other than that one quality, I really don’t like fast food (except for an innate weakness I have for Taco Bell), and here’s why… here are 8 reasons to avoid fast food.

1. It’s fattening

Reason number one for avoiding fast food: it’s fattening. Actually REALLY fattening. A Whopper 40 grams of fat. A Big Mac has 29 grams. For the sake of comparison, and in the pursuit of full disclosure: my entire lunch at Taco Bell (a bean burrito with sour cream and a cheese roll-up) has 22 grams of fat. That’s a LOT of fat, considering these aren’t total meals… most of us eat fries with our burgers, and those add a whopping 22 additional grams of fat — in other words, there are as many grams of fat in my entire Taco Bell meal as there are in just the fries… and we’re really only supposed to get, maximum, 195 fat or sugar calories a day… do the math! A Whopper has 40 grams of fat, which is 360 calories… ick!

2. It’s a lot of empty calories

While it’s true that some of the calories in fast food are from fiber and other “good” carbs, most are not, so they’re useless, or “empty” calories. Empty calories aren’t going to keep you full or help your body, so why bother?

3. It’s disgusting!

Let me be blunt, but gross: there is a certain amount of animal feces in your hamburger. A LOT of animal feces. When you hear of fast food tainted with E. Coli, that, my dear, is where it’s coming from — animal poop.

4. There aren’t a lot of fresh food choices

Most fast food restaurants offer apple slices (with sugar-laden caramel dipping sauce) or salads on their menu, but sadly that’s about the extent of their fresh food offerings. There are a few exceptions: Subway, for example, offers plenty of fresh food options, but, according to Eric Schlosser, author of “Fast Food Nation,” Subway is more concerned with selling franchises than food.

5. They have poor employment practices

Do you know why fast food places seem to hire so many teenagers? It’s because hardly anyone else wants to work in fast food, with the dismal hours, hard work, and low, low pay, most of the time without benefits. Add to the teenage (and thus slightly less reliable) work-force the fact that these restaurants get a tax break every time they hire a new employee, and you see why high job turnover is good for the fast food business, but maybe not so good for the economy.

6. They harm the environment

Massive feedlots, scores of polluting trucks, less-than-energy efficient stores… I’d say fast food isn’t quite as gentle as they could be on the environment. Granted, they’re not alone, but this is just another reason I avoid fast food.

7. They target children to form life-long “addictions”

In a way, I think it’s sick that McDonald’s, Burger King, and all of the other fast food chains target children. They’re trying to get them “hooked” on tasty, high-fat, high-calories, high-sugar foods, so they’ll be what the industry refers to as “heavy users” as adults. No pun intended. That’s really what frequent fast food customers are called.

8. Ronald creeps me out

Last and certainly not least, Ronald McDonald completely creeps me out. He’s a scary clown with blood-red paint on his face and a cheer that borders on manic. And the Burger King plastic guy? Yeah. He’s scary, too.

With so many reasons to avoid fast food, and only one good one I can think of to opt for it, I’m starting to eat at the cursedly addictive Bell less often, and at other fast food next to never. Do you love or loathe fast food? Why do you avoid it or adore it? Please share!

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