Eating that healthful green salad with lots of fresh vegetables is a good nutritional idea, but what are you really pouring on it? If you look at the ingredients list on the bottle of your favorite dressing you may find some distressing items in the mix.

With so many choices of commercially made salad dressings, are there any good reasons to make your own? Yes, there are! Homemade dressings are easy to make, better for your health and often cost less than commercial products.

ADDITIVES

When you read the label of any processed food you will find a lot of mysterious ingredients-- Commercial salad dressings are usually loaded with additives which are generally considered safe in small quantities, but may promote bad nutrition. Processed food is often formulated with substandard cheap ingredients in the interest of making a profit. Commercial salad dressings usually have too much fat, low quality oil, too much sugar or high fructose corn syrup, too much salt/sodium along with many unpronounceable chemicals.

Some government agencies have decided that it is just fine to add several substances to processed edible products. Many of them are things that we wouldn't normally recognize as food.

There are more than 1,400 different approved food additives listed in Codex Alimentarius, ("food book") of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN and the World Health Organization whose main purpose is "to protect the health of consumers".

The list includes additives to color food, to stabilize color or retain color, as well as others to keep food from caking, or foaming or doing something else that it might really want to do in its natural state.

Other additions may emulsify, liquefy or firm a product, or cause a mixture to gel or glaze. There are also additives to keep food moist, additives to keep food food dry and at least one to fight foaming-- which is something that apparently needs to be fought.

There are a large number of preservatives and antioxidants as well as propellants, seasonings, sequestrants(?), stabilizers, sweeteners, acidifiers, thickeners and thinners. There are over 30 kinds of approved flavor enhancers alone.

It seems like most commercially-made salad dressings have more than their fair share of additives. Bottled dressings are often higher in calories than they need to be and also may have excessive sugar and salt which can pose a health risk to many people.

Why should salad dressing need "flavor enhancers" when olive oil and vinegar have so much natural flavor? To get all the flavor you need you can use a smaller quantity of natural ingredients compared to the amount of brand name dressing poured from a bottle. The health benefits of olive oil will truly enhance your salad. For those who prefer a creamy dressing, some people can be converted to an oil and vinegar with a sprinkle of bleu, feta or asagio cheese. All of these are natural and lower in fat than "creamy" dressings.

Processed dressing might include soybean, palm or other oil which is partially hydrogenated and steam distilled to remove the odor. (It would smell like rancid butter without the last step.) Trans-fats are considered to be more harmful to health than even natural saturated fats. Now that people are becoming more aware of trans fats, some products are using different names like mono-diglycerides, which is really another hydrogenated oil product.

Some dressings use cottonseed oil. Since cotton is not normally a food product, the plants may have been treated with pesticides and chemicals not allowed to be used on produce.

So why are these substandard oils used? Simple. They are cheaper, even when "enhanced" with a half-dozen additives.

FINDING RECIPES

There are a few very easy, basic recipes with this article-- but, of course, they are endlessly variable by just making simple changes. There are thousands of easy recipes on the web.

When searching for recipes on line you may want to Google for ingredient (or lack of ingredient) along with "salad dressing" or "salad dressing recipe"

Add the word : tofu, avocado, bleu cheese low fat/non-fat, low sodium, diabetic.

You can search for kinds of food: Asian, Mexican, French. Italian, for type of dressing add : Thousand Island, Ranch, etc.

One thing to keep in mind if you are trying to avoid food additives: a recipe with a prepared ingredient like mayonnaise, catsup, or chili sauce, you might want to look at the label list on those concoctions to find out what they really contain.

If you have a bottled dressing that you like, look at the ingredients list. Use the "real" ingredients to make your own version. Swap out the artificial sweeteners with honey or sugar, use quality oil, cut down on sodium and you may find that you have something that's even better than the original.

When you make your own you may be surprised that you use less total dressing than you used of the commercial variety. Without fillers and gums, the flavors are fresher and more intense. The oils and other ingredients you buy for a recipe may seem much more expensive-- but you will use less and it will be better for you

Yes, some oils like extra virgin cold press olive oil, can be quite pricey, but you don't need to use much. A large salad might only need a tablespoon, and you don't really need to buy the most expensive kind. "Standard" olive oil is fine. Apple cider vinegar or rice wine vinegar (both a little less "sharp" than white vinegar) is not expensive.

What kind of additives are in commercially prepared dressings? The list is long, but lets look at a couple of common ones.

Fresh herbs add concentrated phytonutrients and antioxidants to salads. Just a dash or a pinch of these flavor powerhouses can give you a nutritional boost. Try sage, rosemary, marjoram, parsley and thyme . A dressing with lots of herbs, which have almost no calories, offers health-protective benefits as well as great taste.