Trying to figure out where salsa fits into your diet? Tough break. After reviewing extensive research on the subject, scientists at MIT have determined that we will never know whether salsa is kind of good for you or kind of bad for you.
After poring over the last 50 years’ worth of scientific studies, the research team has concluded that we have exhausted our options for determining whether we should eat salsa a little more or a little less. Furthermore, they have found that no amount of additional research will tell us whether salsa consumption slightly increases your risk for some conditions, if it’s something that really has almost no effect on your diet, or if the ones with the beans in them can actually take the place of a balanced lunch because of the protein.
“We have reviewed hundreds of studies, and our conclusion is that we will never know,” stated Dr. Richard Prewer, lead researcher on the project. “I mean, it’s pretty much all vegetables, so you know that’s good. But you probably can’t get all your daily vegetable servings from salsa, right? Like, you’d be getting too much salt in that case, or maybe it’s one of those deals where the vegetables in salsa don’t have all their nutritional value because they’re not fresh or whatever?”
While researchers were initially confident about their ability to get some sort of actionable results, additional considerations like what kind of chip you use, whether the salsa is a green one or a red one, and how long the jar has been in the fridge all contributed to the intractability of the problem. The research did conclude that eating salsa with a carrot is a little healthier than eating salsa with a tortilla chip, though tortilla chips are made out of corn, which is a vegetable, too, so who knows really.
Well, they tried their best, but it looks like it’s time to give up on this one. Salsa is either a moderately healthy food or a slight indulgence, and science has no idea which. For the foreseeable future, we’ll just have to roll the dice on eating a little bit more or a little bit less salsa than we should.
