SUMMARY: The focus of this post is to better your understanding of vegetable oils and unsaturated fats.  Raw vegetable salads are chock-full of important vitamins and nutrients, but the latest science says you won’t get much benefit without eating them along with both the right type & amount of fat. In fact, essentially no or very low absorption of carotenoids was observed when salads with fat-free salad dressing were consumed (see this study or this study, Table 3.) 

In this post learn: the preferred fat/oil for best carotenoid absorption (spoiler alert: that would be unadulterated, organic, and cold pressed EVOO brands which are listed in the  UC Davis pdf report here — scroll down to the lightbulb for more details), that you can actually ditch dressing and instead add half an avocado, or you can add cooked eggs to an incredibly small amount of dressing to even further boost carotenoid absorption. Make certain you consider the sections entitled What inhibits Carotenoid Absorption for possible impact due to your particular health status, and the tips for Decoding Labels.