It is 11am on a Monday, and I am already hungry. I prepared a large, healthy salad this morning to bring to work but didn’t grab any dressing hoping there would be something in the fridge I could use.
As I continue to learn what I should eat, put on my skin, in my hair, etc., and what I should avoid, the first thing I did when my stomach growled was to see what ranch dressing was in the refrigerator. I found a chain store Creamy Ranch dressing touting Made with Real Buttermilk, Made with Cage Free Eggs, and NO High Fructose Corn Syrup or Artificial Colors. This was all on the front of the label. This sounded promising!
I turned it over to look at the ingredients and found soybean oil (probably genetically modified), xanthan gum (a thickening agent used in a lot of food and personal products and could cause problems if you are diabetic or an infant, which I am neither), modified corn starch (also a thickening agent and obviously genetically modified – at least they are up front on this one), monosodium glutamate (i.e. MSG, a flavor enhancer that may cause headaches and other allergic reactions, natural flavors (no one knows what this might be ?), sodium benzoate (a man made preservative possibly linked with cancer, infammation, ADHD, allergies… ick!) and potassium sorbate (a controversial chemical preservative.)
I believe this dressing will go in the trash. I have learned enough to know that I want to avoid some of these ingredients.
On a further search, I found a packet of ranch dressing that has a much better ingredient list than my first choice and will work for today. No MSG, sodium benzoate or potassium sorbate. Thank you, Ken.
Now I am on the search for a great tasting ranch dressing. I have made some in the past but haven’t found the ideal recipe. My search suggested Rae Drummond’s Homemade Ranch Dressing recipe. Has anyone tried it? Or if you want an even healthier version using Greek yogurt, I found this recipe.
If you have a great ranch dressing recipe, put it in the comments below. With summer just around the corner, my veggies and I will need large quantities of this yummy goodness, but this year…with less chemicals!