“Mayo is made from egg yolks, oil, and salt. When I say oil, it's quite a bit of oil,” explained Dr. Waqas Ahmad Buttar, family physician at Sachet Infusions. “To attain that silky smooth texture, you need to emulsify a lot of oil with the egg yolk. It is highly unlikely that mayo manufacturers use good quality oil.
“If you are counting calories and on a strict diet, If you are having cholesterol and obesity issues, you have to avoid mayonnaise completely. Mayonnaise is high in fat and calories. One tablespoon contains about 100 calories and 10g of fat. Its use in your diet depends upon the type of diet you are consuming.”
As Dr. Buttar mentioned, mayonnaise will make your daily intake of both fat and calories skyrocket. A single tablespoon of mayo contains 90 calories, ten grams of fat and 90 milligrams of sodium. And that’s just a tablespoon - most people end up using so much more than that.
The American Heart Association recommends that adults limit their daily sodium intake to 2,300 milligrams, as too much sodium could lead to medical conditions including high blood pressure, heart disease and stroke.
Many people have started buying mayonnaise made with reduced ingredients or vegan and vegetarian mayonnaises, because it looks like these options should be less fattening than the traditional type. But in reality, these types of mayos are usually the wrists for you.
“A lot of emulsifiers, possibly chemical emulsifiers, go into making a vegetarian/egg-free mayo which is not healthy in general,” Dr. Buttar told us.
Plus, these seemingly “healthy” types of mayonnaise still contain a high amount of saturated fat. So it’s best to skip these mayos entirely.
It can be hard to let mayonnaise go entirely. Even if you can stop putting mayonnaise on sandwiches, you will still find a ton of recipes for salad dressings and sauces that may call for a cup or so of mayo. In these cases, you can try using a homemade mayonnaise alternative.
Betr Health, a team of registered dietitians, offered us their recipe:
- 1 cup of avocado oil
- 1 large egg
- 1 teaspoon lemon juice
- Pinch of salt