I’m not a big fan of vegetables.

It’s not because I don’t like the taste of them, it’s just that they’re annoying to prepare. I try to have veggies in the refrigerator already cooked for the week, and I buy the spinach leaves that are in a plastic container (the ones in the bag wilt fasterSalad is probably the easiest thing to whip up; however, when I think of salad, my rabbit teeth normally don’t come out as quickly as I’d like them to because I was raised to believe that everything had to have some kind of condiment, and salad dressing was no exception. Go to any restaurant and they’ll usually be able to rattle off a long list of salad dressings to choose from; maybe you even have your own collection of salad dressing loitering on the door of your fridge, either way, I usually skip the salad because my option would have to be the oil and vinegar, or just vinegar if I’m watching my fat intake, and that just does not sound very salad worthy. However, irony beckons when I catch myself grabbing spinach leaves by the handful (yes, I just wrote handful) and shoving them in my mouth like they were cookies.

One salad dressing that can get me in the right mood for a nice salad is Balsamic Vinaigrette.
You could make your own with some brown sugar, Dijon mustard, olive oil, and a few other ingredients; there are a few variations to use. However, if you’re watching calories, sugar or fat, or sodium intake, this could actually be a major buzz kill to not your salad, but to your body.

I always say that if I’m going to consume sugar, fat, carbs, or sodium, it better be in the form of an actual meal not just something to decorate it with, and for those who prefer to go au natural and aren’t too worried about calories, by all means, go for it.

So what balsamic vinaigrette do I use when on the rare occasion I want to actually sit down and eat a salad?

Well, I have made my own, or my husband will make a salad dressing without sugar or mustard using spices like, onion powder, garlic powder, paprika, basil, oregano, cayenne pepper, and a little bit of olive oil and balsamic vinegar, but if I’m in the mood for something that mimics the thickness of a balsamic vinaigrette, I use, Maple Grove Farms of Vermont Sugar Free Balsamic

[I do, however, limit the use of this product because of the sucralose <> fake sugar in it.] Can’t have it all, can we?

Walden Farms also has a Balsamic Vinaigrette salad dressing in their line of products as well.

Let me start out by stating, that I love Walden Farms. No calories, No sugar, No fat, it’s like a salad’s wet dream…you know, all very exciting and stimulating until you wake up. So it has sucralose in it too. That’s not quite the problem. It’s about being smart here; the right to choose which companies you want to allow to manipulate you. And I choose Maple Grove Farms in this case damn it!!!

Quick breakdown for you:

Compared to Maple Grove it has 170 mg more sodium for the same serving size!!! (total 290 mg of sodium). And, sadly, for Walden Farms to get the product that “glammed” up for the shelves, surely that must have took a lot more planning and manufacturing than Maple Grove Farms took to get their product ready for the party. Not to mention, while Maple Farms has 10 calories in their product, that seems less complicated than something that claims to have 0 in it. You see, 10 calories will most likely be burned before I even get done chewing the lettuce that it’s wrapped itself around, but that 290 mg of sodium plus the sucralose, I might as well unbutton my pants.

There are so many brands that have “dressed up” their almonds by adding some flavor to them, but so far, I have failed to find one brand that doesn’t sneak in some added sugar, preservatives etc., until today. Literally, when I saw these at the store, my heart felt like it was going to jump right out onto the floor. I was going to walk away; turn my back on these suckers, but they peaked my interest. Not to mention, I could already feel my taste buds dancing on my tongue, and part of me just wanted to scoop them up, not worry about the ingredients, pay for them and scurry out of the store as though I was holding a delicious bag of assorted candies with denial leading the way… you know, be somewhat “normal” for a change? I just wanted to eat them, I mean, I’m sure I could come up with a few rationalizations… I was so excited to see that this brand actually lived up to it’s packaging label that I bought two different flavors. There were two other flavors, lemon and orange ginger, but those aren’t my thing so they got left behind in my dust.