mL to grams for salad dressing?

st476

I just bought lite salsa ranch salad dressing (the brand is litehouse) and the serving size says 30 mL. I know that 1 mL=1g of water, but this dressing is heavier than water and I'm not sure how to convert it to grams.

The measuring cup I have starts at 150 mL. It says 2 tablespoons is 30 mL so I used tablespoons today but I feel like that isn't very accurate.

sparklyglitterbomb

If they don't give a weight measurement - which they may not for a more liquid dressing, then I'd go by the volume measurement rather than weight.

seska422

Yeah, it's a conundrum. Fat is less dense than water but then you have the other ingredients in there too so who knows what the actual density is overall.

I wish that manufacturers would include weight as well as volume measurements per serving for liquids.

I use so little salad dressing that I just weigh it and call it "close enough". It's not like the tablespoon is much better because the dressing sticks to it so you can't be exact with that either.

michelleepotter

Yes, for liquids you probably want to use the volume measurement.

Francl27

I'd find an equivalent brand that gives weight. I hate volume for dressing because it sticks to the spoon anyway... but typically I believe a serving of dressing is about 37g for most brands.

abatonfan

I would use a USDA estimate for a similar type of salad dressing (the USDA has one for ranch dressing -2Tbsp is 30g, which would mean that its density is 15g/mL), weigh out my portion of the Litehouse ranch dressing, and use the estimated density of a generic ranch dressing to calculate how many Tbsp of the Lighthouse dressing I used. The science nerd in me would want to use a graduated cylinder and measure the dressing's volume, but I don't have one.

Francl27

abatonfan wrote: »

I would use a USDA estimate for a similar type of salad dressing (the USDA has one for ranch dressing -2Tbsp is 30g, which would mean that its density is 15g/mL), weigh out my portion of the Litehouse ranch dressing, and use the estimated density of a generic ranch dressing to calculate how many Tbsp of the Lighthouse dressing I used. The science nerd in me would want to use a graduated cylinder and measure the dressing's volume, but I don't have one.

That can't be the case, if one serving is 30ml. No way dressing has the same weight as water.

abatonfan

Francl27 wrote: »

abatonfan wrote: »

I would use a USDA estimate for a similar type of salad dressing (the USDA has one for ranch dressing -2Tbsp is 30g, which would mean that its density is 15g/mL), weigh out my portion of the Litehouse ranch dressing, and use the estimated density of a generic ranch dressing to calculate how many Tbsp of the Lighthouse dressing I used. The science nerd in me would want to use a graduated cylinder and measure the dressing's volume, but I don't have one.

That can't be the case, if one serving is 30ml. No way dressing has the same weight as water.

Oddly, it is according to the USDA ranch dressing entry.

1Tbsp of Italian salad dressing is about 14.7g according to the USDA entry for it.

PaulaWallaDingDong

In the past, I've put the measuring spoon (a flat-bottomed spoon) on the scale, tared it, weighed the volume per serving listed on the bottle, then made my own entry using that weight as the serving size. It's not perfect, but it's consistent.