A salad is normally renowned as a healthy meal choice. It is an excellent means to ensure that you get the most essential foods in your system. A salad is associated with a diet plan to decrease your weight and maintain a well-balanced lifestyle. With that said, it is quite easy to ruin a healthy portion of salad by adding high-calorie toppings, dressing and other food items which have been deep fried. In this article, we discuss ways on how to make a salad bad for you.
A lot of iceberg lettuce
The taste is quite bland, and the vitamin/nutritional value is very minimal. Its only nutritional value is the water content. It also contains little fibre. Considering that it is a dull ingredient, it will only serve to entice for additional sides of salad dressing. In this regard, a good salad should contain darker vegetables which contribute with more vitamins and a better taste. Such an example would be spinach.
Croutons
Although they create a different effect due to their taste and crunchy element, they do not serve as a healthy addition due to their number of calories. If you would like to indulge in the crunchy effect, try walnuts which come with omega-3 fatty acids that are beneficial for the heart and nervous system.
Cheese
Discussing whether the cheese is a healthy choice to include in your salad is a difficult one. Whilst it is an excellent source of calcium and protein, it also contains sodium, saturated fat, calories, more fat and calories. Did I mention cheese is fattening and has loads of calories? This leaves (did you get the pun there?) many wondering whether cheese should go with their healthy salad. To get the best of both worlds, go for light fat cheese such as parmesan, or a vegetarian cheese substitute made from rice and soy.
Fried Ingredients
You start losing out on the health benefits of a salad once you start including the fried stuff. Frying chicken and bacon would be counterproductive to your attempt at eating healthy. The same can be said for tortillas which may be added to a salad. These are calorie factories which need to be avoided at all costs!
Dressing
Whilst it is common to have the salad you ordered at a restaurant accompanied with the dressing, this is unfortunate because these are normally full of fats and calories. When ordering salad at a restaurant, always ask to have the dressing served on the side so that you can control your intake. This can save you hundreds of calories. If you are at home and would like a healthier substitute, try some lemon juice or low-calorie salsa.
A salad is meant to be a healthy alternative, so make sure that you follow these steps to benefit from the advantages of regular salad consumption.
