Summer is a time when dressing, while required, is certainly less modest. Should your salads go the same route?
Salads and dressing go rather well together because vegetables have fat-soluble vitamins. Cycles of obsession with low-fat have produced dressing decisions that weren't helpful or healthful.
You need fat, but not too much. Good fat is better than bad fat, but not to be used as an excuse to use more than you need.
Salads need dressing, but they can go with a light summer dress year-round instead of adding an extra sweater.
At home, I've been good lately. I use the old Good Seasons bottles to make homemade Italian dressing, using spices on the shelf and less extra virgin olive oil than the line requires. But the Friday salad at lunchime comes with its own temptation: the house dressing.
Let's call it a national chain with the initials CBC. The dressing is good, and I always ask for extra dressing. To be fair, their containers shrunk so "extra" isn't that big. Either the chain's standard for the amount of dressing on its chopped salad is sufficient, and I'm putting on too much; or the chain is being cheap and I am reasonable.
Too much dressing? Probably. Their settings are too low? Likely.
I'm looking for a pullover sweater like women wear when they know the office will be cold, and they're looking for a spaghetti strap dress that isn't office-appropriate. The truth lies more along the lines of a long-sleeved blouse with a camisole.
This same chain tosses the ingredients with the dressing for the in-restaurant orders, but offers dressing on the side for to-go orders. If the chain is using the same amount of dressing in either case, we are talking a rather small bikini. The salad isn't as much fun in person as getting it to go because of the amount of dressing. And asking for extra dressing and finding that the amount of extra dressing isn't enough is frustrating and diminishing.
Should we live without the sweater? Can we take the assigned dressing amount, shake it within the container, and hope spaghetti straps are enough?
Even in the calorie obsessive climate where people demand every calorie have accountability in restaurant menus, the calories on a salad are determined by the amount of dressing involved, whether a bikini, a spaghetti strap dress, or a long-sleeved blouse with a wool sweater.
If you are eating the salad mostly for the dressing, chances are you need to pick a new outfit.
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