Why Fatty Salad Dressing May Actually Be Better For You

So I guess I’ve been eating salad wrong for years.

When I first started eating healthy, salads became my new best friend. Get a good, balanced meal for under 400 calories? Switch out the ranch for fat-free vinaigrette and make it even less?

Turns out that kind of thinking has helped exactly no one. Researchers at Purdue University have recently discovered that having some fats in your dressings is actually vital to unlocking vegetables’ full magical nutritional powers. Vitamins A, D, E, and K, for example, are fat-soluble, which means they are absorbed by the intestinal tract with the help of fat molecules. A salad made with fat-free dressing, therefore, can equal an arguably tasteless, ADEK-free meal.

Of course, there are limits to such fantastic news. Monounsaturated fats like those in olive oil are still better for you than the saturated fats in Ranch and Thousand Island. You’d need higher amounts (and in turn, more calories’ worth) of the latter to achieve the same health benefits gained from smaller amounts of the former. But in any case, health nuts and calorie counters need no longer fear dressing-induced flavor, which has to be a good thing.

Just don’t get too crazy.