Salad is Perfect Diet Food - Right?

 Diets and Weightloss

Many people think that if they are having a salad for lunch or dinner, or even breakfast - that they are having a healthy meal. And yes, a salad can be a very healthy food choice. It can also be just as bad of a food choice as a fast food burger and fries.

Salad or a Tossed Meal?

Does the salad dressing you're using have a lot of calories in it, and are you using so much of it on your salad that you have the caloric equivalent of a McDonald's burger on your salad in dressing alone?

Many people think that if they are having a salad for lunch or dinner, or even breakfast - that they are having a healthy meal. And yes, a salad can be a very healthy food choice. It can also be just as bad of a food choice as a fast food burger and fries depending on what is put on that salad.

Here's an example of a salad a friend of mine who was dieting recently made for herself when we were having lunch at a restaurant with a salad bar. I watched her make a huge salad and this is what it contained:

Iceberg lettuce

Shredded carrots

Tomatoes

Cucumbers

Hard boiled egg

Diced ham

Diced turkey

Diced salami

Bacon bits

Shredded cheddar cheese

Shredded Parmesan cheese

Croutons

Sunflower Seeds

Regular ranch dressing - lots of it.

On the side of the salad but on the same plate she piled servings of potato salad, pasta salad, and cottage cheese.

I think I remembered all the ingredients. I may have forgotten one two, but I'm pretty close to having them all. I remembered her salad because she talked about her diet a lot during lunch and was so proud of herself for not ordering the hamburger she really wanted and instead having the salad. When I pointed out that the hamburger would have been less calories, she laughed at me. I think she thought I was joking but I wasn't.

My friend did not have a salad. By the time she finished making her salad it was hard to see the lettuce. She had a tossed meal. And she had several high fat items in that salad like the processed deli meats, the cheddar cheese, and the bacon bits.

On the other hand, a salad can be a very healthful choice. Some good choices are:

Dark leafy greens although iceberg is okay too.

Raw vegetables like tomatoes, broccoli, mushrooms, carrots, cauliflower, cucumber, green pepper (or any other color pepper), celery, radishes, and onions.

A low fat or vinaigrette dressing (raspberry vinaigrette has big flavor without having a lot of calories).

See our Color Wheel of Fruits and Vegetables

A salad can be whatever you want it to be.

But a salad piled high with high calorie and high fat foods in a not the perfect diet food. In fact, what it might be is the perfect diet wrecking food because it fools people into thinking they are eating a low calorie meal when they aren't.

By Dorrie Ruplinger - 2006-11-15

Link to Salad is Perfect Diet Food - Right?" - http://www.disabled-world.com/artman/publish/salad-diet.shtml