The Reason You Should Never Buy Store-Bought Salad Dressing

There are plenty of groceries people need to stop putting in their grocery carts. A lot of what we buy at the grocery store is over-processed and packed with too many sugars and too many oils that are bad for our health. A great example of this is granola bars that are sugary and contain preservatives, not to mention pricey. 

You're better off making your own granola bars at home for the kids' lunches. Some purchases just don't make sense financially, such as pre-sliced fruit or meat. Meat that has been pre-cut into stewing or stir-frying size or shaped into hamburger patties can be marked up to 60%; it's cheaper to slice your fruit or portion your meat yourself, according to Woman's Day. But of course, if convenience is your goal, carry on.

But if your New Year's resolution is to eat healthier, good for you. So you go to the store, scan the seemingly endless salad dressing options and load up your salad bowl. You put some of your favorite bottled dressing on and dig in. "Yes," you might think, "so healthy!" But you might be undoing all your healthy eating by pouring that dressing on there.

Store-bought dressings have a permanent spot on lists of things you're wasting your money on at the grocery store. Salad dressings – even the organic ones – are often full of bad oils and rarely contain heart-healthy extra virgin olive oil, per US News. They're also highly caloric, with a serving sometimes packing a wallop of 120 calories, according to Woman's Day. According to O Olive Oil & Vinegar, salad dressings are full of sugar and sodium, which, if consumed in excess, can cause health problems, including hypertension. Plus, you don't go through a 12-fluid-ounce bottle fast enough to keep it tasting fresh, making it an expensive condiment.

Making your own salad dressing at home is cheaper and healthier. Whipping up a small batch of an all-purpose vinaigrette once a week is easy and ensures freshness – just throw all the ingredients, which are pantry staples, in a jar and shake. Vinegar ensures add-ins like minced shallot will stay fresh for at least a week. Just beware that garlic and anchovies tend to get stronger as time goes on, so come the end of the week, you could have a garlicky salad dressing instead of the delicate vinaigrette you started with, per The New York Times. Instead of the dozen or so ingredients found on the back of a bottle of Hidden Valley Ranch dressing, you could easily whip up your own ranch dressing with pantry staples like sour cream and mayonnaise.