Many, if not most, commercial salad dressings drown your fresh, delicious, nourishing vegetables in water and corn syrup. These products are not food, and they do not nourish you. Instead, they waste your money, and they markedly reduce the nutritional value of your salad. A while back I decided to stop at the supermarket to check the ingredient lists on four popular salad dressing brands. I think you will be very interested in what I discovered.The first product I chose was Wishbone Italian dressing. I admit that I was surprised to learn that the first ingredient in Wishbone Italian is water. If that seems strange to you, then trust your instincts. Not only is it a very expensive way to buy water, but it’s shocking that water is being passed off as Italian dressing. That’s because Italian dressing is traditionally made from olive oil and vinegar. A great many cultures have dishes that pair greens with fats, and that has made me consider whether there might be some particular benefit associated with the combination. But I digress.

The first ingredient in this so-called Italian dressing was not olive oil but, rather, water. Other ingredients included soybean and canola oil, distilled vinegar, sugar, salt, dehydrated garlic and onion and red bell pepper, maltodextrin, xantham gum, spices, autolyzed yeast extract, EDTA, natural flavor, lemon juice concentrate, caramel color, and annatto, to color the dressing yellow. I think the idea of the annatto is to make the product look more like olive oil which, of course, it does not contain.

The next product I examined was Hidden Valley Fat-Free Ranch. Like Wishbone Italian, the ingredient list started with water, which was followed by corn syrup, maltodextrin, sugar, and modified food starch (usually made from corn or wheat, whichever is cheaper at the time of purchase). These ingredients (corn syrup, maltodextrin, sugar, and modified food starch) are four different ways of incorporating sugar into the product. The more sugar, the more insulin required to metabolize your food. The sixth ingredient was buttermilk. Buttermilk, the liquid that remains after making butter from cream, is high in protein. But the nutrition information listed 0 grams of protein, so you can draw your own conclusion about how much buttermilk was actually in the jar.

Then I checked Kraft Catalina, a sweet American French dressing. The first ingredient was high-fructose corn syrup, followed by water, tomato paste (called “tomato puree”), soybean oil, vinegar, salt and 12 more ingredients that constitute less than two percent of the total and included red dye 40, yellow dye 6, and blue dye 1. I imagine these are what is responsible for the remarkably orange color of the product. Then there’s the sugar. Two tablespoons of Catalina dressing contain 10 grams of carbohydrate, most of which (9 grams) is sugar. It’s like pouring pancake syrup on your salad. Or mixing lettuce into your dessert.

Finally, I picked up a bottle of Kraft Balsamic Vinegar. Once again, the first ingredient was water. Then came “vegetable oils” (further defined as “canola, soybean, extra virgin olive oil”), “balsamic vinegar” (wine vinegar, grape juice, water), and a long list of non-food-like ingredients, each of which constituted less than 2% of the total.

What am I trying to say? These products are not food. In their place, I would offer a simple recipe that is much better, much tastier, much more nutritious. Mix together 3 Tbsp. of olive oil with 2 Tbsp. balsamic vinegar and/or 1 tsp. salt. Pour over washed lettuce greens, toss well, and serve.

What other options are there? I picked out a few of my favorite salad dressing recipes and listed them below for you to try. Except for the last one, simply combine the ingredients in a small bowl, bottle, or jar, mix well, and refrigerate. All these dressings are flavorful and nutritious. If you are sensitive to salt, just skip it. There is plenty of flavor with or without the salt.

1) Balsamic Vinaigrette is made with 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar, 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil, 2 Tbsp. lemon juice, 2 tsp. soy sauce, 3 garlic cloves mashed to a pulp with 1/2 tsp. coarse salt, and 1/4 tsp. fresh ground pepper. Use a fork or a mortar & pestle to mash the garlic cloves into the salt prior to mixing all the ingredients together.

2) Tahini Salad Dressing is made with 1 minced clove of garlic, 3/4 cup tahini, 1/4 cup lemon juice, and 2 Tbsp. olive oil, with salt to taste. If it seizes up and thickens when you add the lemon juice to the tahini, begin to drizzle in a teaspoon of water at a time to loosen it back up. This dressing will stay fresh for just a few days. This is one of my long-time favorites, by the way, and it’s especially good poured over a Lebanese salad composed of 2 small diced cucumbers, 2 small diced tomatoes, 3 diced radishes, 1 sliced green onion, 10 sliced mint leaves, and 1/3 bunch parsley, chopped. Serves 2-3, though you may also choose to eat the entire salad yourself.

3) Classic French Vinaigrette is made with 1/2 cup white vinegar, 1 Tbsp. honey, 1 Tbsp. prepared Dijon-style mustard, 1/2 tsp. ground black pepper, 1 tsp. salt, 2 tsp. minced garlic, and 1 cup olive oil. Mix together all the ingredients except the olive oil. Then begin to drizzle in the olive oil very slowly, maybe a tablespoon at a time, while you continue to stir, stir, stir the mixture. This forms what’s called an “emulsion,” which accounts for the thickened texture. If heat is your thing, you can also add 2-4 drops of hot sauce to the initial mixture if you’d like, although — technically speaking — it will no longer be a classic french vinaigrette.

4) My friend Louise wrote in to say that “For salad dressing, I just squeeze on some lemon juice, add a little olive oil and some zaatar [a Mediterranean spice available widely now] and toss. Very easy.” Agreed, and delicious!