Extra virgin olive oil, as described by [del]a screeching harpy[/del] celebrity “cook” Rachel Ray.
One visits a free calorie counting website which draws it’s data from FDA analysis. Nutritiondata.com is but one from among many, but it’s the one I used, below:
Extra Virgin Olive Oil, 3 TBSP: 357
Vinegar, 2 TBSP: 0
Lemon Juice, 1 TBSP: 5
Garlic, 1 clove: 4
Mustard, 1 TBSP: 3
Total calories: 369
Divide by servings.
Like I said, for a salad dressing, it is relatively heathful. I really don’t see the problem with the labeling or marketing of the product.
Oh noes! 97% of calories from fat. Must be bad!!!
Good point, people are getting hung up on details and missing the goals.
I get that you divided the total calories by four servings (388/4= 97) but I don’t buy the fat part. Olive oil doesn’t equal fat… like bacon fat or cheeseburger fat does it? Gracious I hope not as I use it for many things, including dipping bread in it. (Parenthetically I would also say that quite a bit of that dressing doesn’t get consumed as it stays in the salad bowl or on the plate.)
Not really. All calories are equal in the amount of energy they provide, certainly, so if you’re interpreting “calorie” strictly to mean “a unit of energy”, then they’re all the same.
But not all foods with equal amounts of caloric content are nutritionally similar, which was very obviously what pkbites was getting at:
“Not all calories are equal” is an easily understood shorthand expression for the concept “It’s the nutritional value of what you eat that matters, not just its total caloric content”. I don’t think anybody else in this thread was confused or mislead by the phrase.
No, it’s 97% Calories from fat because 357 divided by 369 is 97%. Olive oil is pure fat. Most experts agree that it’s better for you than bacon or cheeseburger grease, but that doesn’t mean it’s not fat, it just means that not all fat is the same, and “fat” does not necessarily mean “unhealthy”.
Olive oil = fat
Not all fat is bad - vegetable oils are good for you. Lard may not be so good for you. There is a spectrum of fats - from fully saturated animal fats to polyunsaturated vegetable fats (oils). Also the unnatural trans-fats which are probably the worst of the lot.
It pays to learn about nutrition and choose how you want to “spend” your fat calories - I always have olive oil around to cook with - and I cut back on things like butter. Seems to work for me.
In everyday language, “fat” is often used only for lipids that are solid at room temperature or only for animal fats, while “oil” is often used for lipids that are liquid at room temperature or only for vegetable fats. However, the nutritional labeling calls all lipids “fat” and your body processes it all pretty much the same way.
Calorie-wise, there’s no difference between olive oil and bacon or cheeseburger fat.
In fact… it surprises a lot of people that butter has fewer calories per unit of volume than olive oil (100 calories/tbsp compared to 120) because butter has some water and protein. It’s the olive oil that’s pure fat.
I never said it was. I contrasted it with many other “diet” dressings which promote how low in fat they are, but have a ton of calories due to all the sugary stuff they add to make it tasty.
pkbites, if I took a gallon of water and added a single drop of oil, would you call that low-fat? Because that would have 100% of its Calories from fat. It’s just that, in that case, 100% of its Calories still isn’t very much.
It wouldn’t mix. 
OK, sure, it won’t mix (or at least, won’t stay mixed), but I’ve still got a big jug with a gallon of water and a drop of oil in it, and a label on the side that says “Shake well before using”.
Do what most salad dressings do and add some xanthan gum or something similar as an emulsifier. 
(Or mustard if you’re being more “natural” about it.)
Side note: we have some xanthan gum powder in our pantry. If you want to play with it, start with small quantities. Like, way less than you think you’ll need. I accidentally made an almost-solid dressing/marinade once.
Are there any calories in xanthan gum?
Maybe 10 calories per teaspoon, but a teaspoon is a lot. A quarter teaspoon would thicken a lot of sald dressing.
Yup. I also own xanthan gum. You’d probably add more salt or pepper or other seasonings to salad dressing than you’d add xanthan gum, lest (as mentioned above) your salad dressing turn out to be vinaigrette jello.