A big bowl of colorful vegetables, greens and fruits can make your day so much better! If you have been religiously eating salads most days, yet are seeing the weighing scales go up, then the problem might be your salad dressing! You will be shocked to look at the number of calories your dressing adds to the innocent bowl of salad. Here are a few pitfalls of Bottled Salad Dressings and the reasons why you should avoid them !

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Loaded with sugar
Sugar is one of the unhealthiest, yet addictive ingredient that is added to almost all food items you eat. Most Store-Bought Salad Dressing comes with added sugar that gives you the right balance of taste. If you are a diabetic and are trying to work on your glucose levels or are on a low-carb diet, such dressings can totally ruin it for you! Most of the dressings, that claim to be the best-bottled salad dressing without sugar, might come with artificial sweeteners. These can taste funny, and might not be healthy in the long run.

Hidden Fats
While healthy fats come in the form of avocados and olive oils, most dressings are filled up with trans fat that is extremely harmful to your body. Trans fats are cheaper and increase the shelf life of such Bottled Salad Dressings. This is why you should take a lot of care before picking up the right product. Do look out for terms like trans fat and partially hydrogenated.

Fat-free dressings
There can be a lot of artificial additives mixed to make up for the fat-free taste in salads. Such fat-free versions of Bottled Salad Dressings are also loaded with sugar to make up for the taste.
Artificial colors and flavors Are you wondering how a big bottle of tasty salad dressing comes so cheap when it is very expensive to make the same one at home? The addition of artificial food colors and flavors might be the answer. A lot of flavors like honey mustard, Caesar, barbeque, red chili etc. are flavors that are not extracted from natural ingredients.

Sodium
Sodium or salt is another ingredient we just cannot live without. However, when you cook at home, the amount of sodium added is usually minimal. Bottled Salad Dressings come loaded with salt and with time, your taste buds get used to the higher volume of sodium in every food item that you eat. A typical dressing should have less than 250 mg of sodium per serve. Check this out before you pick up the product.

Chemical additives
Have you heard of the terms like the monosodium glutamate (MSG), hydrolyzed vegetable proteins, Xanthan gum and other chemical preservatives? These are commonly added in all food ingredients to enhance the taste and to give you a richer and tastier finish. You should switch over to either organic brands or make your own dressing at home to prevent such additives from causing damage.

How to pick the right salad dressing
Always look at the ingredients lists and put away any bottle that has complicated names of chemicals. Organic brands take extra effort in reducing the use of unhealthy ingredients. You can also choose brands that have a lesser shelf life. This means that their ingredients are fresher and safer to use. Pick up Healthiest Salad Dressings made with olive oil and you can use these generously without worrying about weight gain and illness.

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The healthiest way out is to make your own salad dressing at home. This way, you stay away from anything harmful and have a control over what you eat. If that is impossible, pick Bottled Salad Dressings that contain simpler ingredients, and control your portion sizes.

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