WALDEN FARMS CAESAR DRESSING

This is another offering by Walden Farms in their line-up of zero calories, zero sugar, and zero fat dressings. It has the distinctive smell that we automatically associate with Caesar dressings. This dressing is in the same line as the previous ones from Walden Farms that I have reviewed and but fairs a little better in the taste category than the others. It is hard to explain but the taste seems to hit farther back on the tongue rather than in the front. It is almost like an after-taste that you taste while eating. It is similar to the taste of some kind of hot spice that they just give you a hint of without actually giving it to you.

The ingredients are mostly the same as their other products and contain “Purified Triple Filtered Water”, white vinegar, cellulose gel, salt, buttermilk powder, anchovies, cheese flavor, lactic acid, onion, natural flavors, natural spices, xanthan gum, propylene glycol alginate, sodium benzoate, food color and sucralose. The only surprises here are the buttermilk power, anchovies and cheese flavor. It may be the anchovies that give Caesar dressings their distinctive smell.

Just like the other Walden Farms dressings, this has zero of everything including fat, calories, sugars, carbs and also nutritional values. The sodium content of this is medium and not unexpected. When you are finished eating this dressing your lips still have a tingle in them caused by the small amount of heat supplied in this dressing. This is not unpleasant and helps to remind you that you have eaten something. This sets it apart from the other Walden Farms dressings I have tried. This is a better product and has enough taste to make it worth your while trying.

Taste Rating = 4 bottles
Overall Rating = 3
Style Category = Caesar
Fat Category = fat free
Calorie Category = no calorie
Nutritional Category = none
Sodium Category = med

Walden Farms Jersey Sweet Onion Dressing

This is another offering by Walden Farms in their line-up of zero calories, zero sugar, and zero fat dressings. It has a different smell that reminds me of the smell of Ranch dressing. This dressing has the most taste of any Walden Farms dressings that I have tried so far. It still is not strong but this taste does stay with you a little longer than others. I don’t know what “Jersey Sweet” means. I tried Googling it but didn’t come up with anything so I guess it is just a name that they came up with. However, this dressing does have a little bit of sweet taste and I kept tasting it for several hours after eating it and it was not in an especially pleasant way.

The ingredients are mostly the same as their other products and contain “Purified Triple Filtered Water”, white vinegar, cellulose gel, salt, chopped onion, onion powder, natural flavors, natural spices, mustard flour, titanium dioxide, sucralose, lactic acid, propylene glycol alginate, xanthan gum, and sodium benzoate. The only difference between this dressing and the other is, not surprisingly, the chopped onion.

Just like the other Walden Farms dressings, this has zero of everything including fat, calories, sugars, carbs and also nutritional values. The sodium content of this is medium and not unexpected. This does have more taste than some of their other dressings and the taste is a little different than some of the more traditional dressings (like Ranch, Thousand Island, French, etc) and for that reason alone might warrant a try.


Taste Rating = 4 bottles
Overall Rating = 5
Style Category = Other
Fat Category = fat free
Calorie Category = no calorie
Nutritional Category = none
Sodium Category = med

WALDEN FARMS THOUSAND ISLAND DRESSING

Most of my life my dressing of choice has been Thousand Island dressing. That was until I started trying to lose weight and could not find any good low-calorie dressings. Needless to say I couldn’t wait to try the Calorie Free/Fat Free/Sugar Free offering from Walden Farms and once again I was disappointed by this one. The smell of it hinted of tomatoes but not really in a pleasant way because it also smelled of vinegar. Just like the Honey Dijon Vinaigrette the taste was very weak but the flavor of this one was not really good either. When I finished with my salad each day I found I had not enjoyed my salad at all. Even though the flavor was weak I didn’t really like it either. After eating it I felt that I had wasted a good salad by using this dressing on it.

The main ingredient of this dressing, like the Honey Vinaigrette dressing I tried previously was water. Once again it is listed as “Purified Triple Filtered Water” (as if this makes a difference!). Next in the list is white vinegar, tomato paste, cellulose gel, natural flavor, natural spices, salt, garlic powder, onion powder, pickle relish, lemon juice, xanthan gum, propylene glycol, alginate, sodium benzoate, food color, sucralose. This is very similar to the Honey Vinaigrette except for the tomato paste and pickle relish (probably not too surprising).

This is another dressing that I won’t be in any hurry to use again because of the vinegary taste of this offering. I guess I have to keep trying to find a good low-calorie Thousand Island dressing.

Taste Rating = 2 bottles.
Overall Rating = 2 bottles
Style Category = 1000 Island
Fat Category = fat free
Calorie Category = no calorie
Nutritional Category = none
Sodium Category = med

KRAFT LIGHT RANCH

The advertising slogan for this dressing is “has the taste of regular dressing!” and for once I think I’d agree. This dressing has the smell of mayonnaise with a hint of something else, possibly eggs and garlic. It is very thick and pours slowly. Don’t expect it to drip down to the lower part of your salad because it is too thick for this – you must mix it up yourself to get the salad to the bottom. I see this as a good trait of this dressing. The flavor is pleasant with no strong after-taste and is strong enough to make a difference in your salad enjoyment.

Like other so-called “light” dressing this is compared to Kraft’s regular offering and states that it has “50% less fat and 33% fewer calories than regular dressing.” This may be true but it still has 4.5 g of fat and 70 calories per serving. I have trouble with the serving size which always (I think) 2 tblsp. I don’t think I could ever just use 2 tablespoons of dressing. It always takes more than that but this is used by all dressings that I have seen. This dressing is one of the first I’ve reviewed that contains cholesterol (10 mg/3%). I guess this is due to the egg yolks in the dressing. The list of ingredients shows no surprises. It consists of water, corn syrup, soybean oil, vinegar, egg yolks, modified food starch, salt sugar and contains less than 2% of garlic juice, monosodium glutamate, phosphoric acid, xanthan gum, potassium sorbate and calcium disodium edta as preservatives, artificial color, polysorbate 60, spice ( I wonder what kind?), dried parsley, lemon juice concentrate, lactic acid (I thought that built up in your muscles during exercise?), natural flavor contains milk. This is another dressing that contains a high amount of sodium (370 mg or 15%). The label indicates that there is no nutritional value in this dressing but it does contain fats and sugars.

This dressing is a good offering in the Ranch type of dressing and if the calories, fat, and sodium content are agreeable to you then you should try this dressing. It is better than most that I have tried - especially better than the “light ranch” offerings in restaurants where the dressing just appears to be a thin, watered down version of their regular ranch dressing.


Taste Rating = 6
Overall Rating = 5
Style Category = Ranch
Fat Category = low fat
Calorie Category = medium calorie
Nutritional Category = none
Sodium Category = med high

KRAFT FREE ZESTY ITALIAN FAT FREE DRESSING

This offering from Kraft distinguishes itself by the fact that it is not just a low-fat dressing but completely fat free while retaining the flavor of a regular Italian dressing. It has the typical thinness of an oil-based dressing with the different bits of light, dark, and red particles floating in it. The smell is vinegary (as could be expected) and the taste is strong enough to cause a little pucker on the first bite. But this dressing has another factor that makes it a reason to choose it and that is because it is low calorie along with being fat free. It only has 16 calories per serving which is the normal 2 tablespoons.

The list of ingredients contains mostly the expected ones such as water, vinegar as the largest percentage but then adds high fructose corn syrup which is not always present. After these comes salt and then less than 2% of the following ingredients; dried garlic, soybean oil (this is new also), garlic, modified food starch, xanthan gum, dried onions, dried red peppers, spice , yellow 5, yellow 6 (what are these?), potassium sorbate and calcium disodium EDTA as preservatives. It offers very little in the way of nutrition, however, but it does have a couple of drawbacks; first, it contains 2gs of sugar (which is not terrible) but second, it contains a whopping 480 mg of sodium or 20% of the daily recommended value. This alone lowers the overall rating one point on my scale, but may make little difference if sodium is not a problem for you.

This dressing is a good choice if your preference leans toward an Italian style dressing. It has a lot going for it – mainly the fact that it is fat free and low calorie. It has a full-bodied taste and typical texture and appearance. The only drawback I find is the large amount of sodium in it and a small after-taste which is not especially pleasant but not too bad either.

Taste Rating = 5
Overall Rating = 4
Style Category = Italian
Fat Category = fat free
Calorie Category = low calorie
Nutritional Category = none
Sodium Category = high

Wishbone Balsamic Breeze Vinaigrette Spritzer

I just had to see for myself whether or not the “Spritzer” dressings were a rip-off or not. The ads and statistics seemed pretty good: “only 1 calorie per spray” (or 10 calories per salad). You would think that if they allow 10 sprays per salad that it would be enough dressing and this would qualify in the “very good” category as far as calories go. The fat, total carbs, and sodium were very good in (1 g, 1g, 130 mg respectively but the bottle seemed awful small for the money but they did also advertise that this small bottle would “Dress more salads than a 16 oz. bottle”. I waited until someone else in my office bought a bottle and then I decided to try it.

Of course it was obvious that the dressing would have to be thin and without chunks in order for it to pass through a spray nozzle. I began by using the recommended 10 sprays. (Caution: it comes out pretty hard and can splash out of your salad onto whatever is on the table with it.). Then I smelled it and it smelled OK and typical of a balsamic-based vinaigrette. I then took a bite and couldn’t taste much of anything. I took a few more bites and found the same thing. My salad seemed dry so I did 10 more spritzes. That was a little better and I could finally taste it. I then ate the top layer of my salad. The taste was good but after I got past the top layer I needed more spritzes to keep my salad from being dry. So I gave it 10 more spritzes and mixed my salad all together. That allowed me to eat most of my salad but by the time I reached the bottom I wanted to add more dressing.

The taste of the dressing was good and I suspect it is just their regular balsamic dressing put in a spray bottle. I like the balsamic taste and often use it in cooking and this had a good taste by itself and, not surprisingly, it was the largest ingredient after water. I have no complaints about the taste except it is a little weak but I just think the packaging is misleading. I don’t think anyone could get by with just 10 sprays of this dressing. My guess it this is probably about 2 teaspoons of dressing. If you could stick with this amount then it would only add about 10 calories to your dressing however, I don’t think anyone could stick to this on a salad larger than a cup.

Taste Rating = 6 bottles
Overall Rating = 5 bottles
Style Category = Vinaigrette
Fat Category = low fat
Calorie Category = low calorie
Nutritional Category = none
Sodium Category = low

Kraft Free Roka Blue Cheese Flavored Dressing

Personally I have not tried too many Blue Cheese dressing until now. Most of the time they have too many calories and too much fat so I have stayed away from them even though I love Blue Cheese. After trying this one I think I need to sample some of the other brands, not because this one is bad but just the opposite. This one is not really low on calories or carbs but it is not too bad.

Note, this one is called “Blue Cheese Flavored” and I guess that they do this because the tasted must not be caused by the tiny amount of blue cheese in the dressing. It is very near the bottom on the list of ingredients. Still, I think it is a pretty good imitation of blue cheese.

This dressing has the traditional smell of other blue cheese dressings and the taste compares favorably to non-fat free dressings. It is not too tangy but has a bit of a “salty” taste if you taste it away from any other food. I would like this more if it were lower in sodium because it is high with 350 mg and carbs (11g) but if nothing else I am now going to be looking for more blue cheese dressings to compare it to.

Taste Rating = 6 bottles
Overall Rating = 5 bottles
Style Category = Blue Cheese
Fat Category = fat free
Calorie Category = med calorie
Nutritional Category = little except Vitamin E (8%)
Sodium Category = med-high