Why Salads are not as Healthy as we Thought
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lemurcat12 wrote: »PeachyPlum wrote: »Someone posted they use salsa on any salad,because they like it better than salad dressings. I prefer rice vinegar,lots of seasoning,small amout of oil .Heavy on the veggies & it's good to go.
Yep. Alternate, low cal dressings include:
Balsamic Vinegar
Rice Vinegar
Red Wine Vinegar
Squeeze of fresh Lime, Lemon, or Grapefruit
Honestly, I find that about 1/4 cup of certain veggies (like thawed frozen corn) is sweet enough to replace my need for dressing.
Yeah, I like to add lactofermented veggies or banana peppers to my salads, their tartness is enough to serve as dressing sometimes!
I will put in my usual plug for pepperoncinis, which are a delicious addition to almost any salad, and similarly preclude any need for dressing if you bite into them and let them spill all over the veggies. I also might put cottage cheese on the side and eat it with the veggies if I want a dressing-less salad. These are things that might be better for meals alone, though.
In addition to the buffalo salad mentioned above, another salad I like to buy from time to time is the Pret a Manger chicken and avocado salad (440 calories -- can't be too low cal with avocado and walnuts) and the falafel mezze salad from the same place (320 cal). Neither of these needs dressing, which is good because I always forget to leave balsamic vinegar at work and don't like any of Pret's current dressing options.
I love vinegars so much that I usually like making and using dressings when I eat salad at home.
This thread is almost enough to make me want a salad for dinner, but can't overcome the fact that it's going to be in the 20s tomorrow, ugh! Will make something hot instead.
I love balsamic vinegar so much, and I'd often just use that as a dressing. I'm pretty lazy, so I'd usually do a salad for breakfast or dinner (and sometimes both) every day. I found out the hard way that too much vinegar will actually kill the cells in your mouth and cause the lining of your mouth to slough off and die. Freaky, but no actual harm. I now mix vinegar with mustard and some olive oil for dressing and have had no further issues with my mouth dying... :laugh:
Hmm, good to know. I think. ;-)0 -
Frankly, if that 800 calorie salad is your meal, not merely a part of your meal, and you are not going over your calories for the day, it really would be incorrect to say it is not healthy. There are a bunch of vitamins and minerals in the various ingredients making it very nutritious. Even the fats tend to be ones that are considered more healthy. My suppers are often around 800 calories as I like bigger meals, especially at the end of the day.0
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Frankly my dear, I dont give a damn0
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As stated before, it all depends on what you put into it. I can go to Jason's and make a salad that fills me for lunch for just a little over 400 calories. I had to wean myself down to a much lower amount of dressing and cut my cheese, but most of that is spinich and spring mix. Once I stopped thinking of salads as the lettace base to get the toppings to my mouth and started watching what I put on it, I learned how to make a lunch salad that won't sabotage my daily calories but will still tide me over until I get home.0
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PeachyPlum wrote: »I never would have expected Buffalo Chicken Salad to be light on calories. And I think the words 'Quesadilla Explosion' are also fair warning that big calories lie ahead. I hope no one out there ever confused those menu items with actual salads!
Does anybody remember the Bud Light Real Men of Genius ads?
"Here's to you, Mr. Giant Taco Salad Inventor Man!"
youtube.com/watch?v=FWMBAmo_1cQ
Re-thread hijack.
Fun bit of trivia about these:
They used to open with "Real American Heroes" as the opening bit instead of "Real Men of Genius". They changed from "Real American Heroes" to "Real Men of Genius" after 9/11.
The CD I have has some with each opening line.
/really ending thread hijack this time.0 -
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I found the same to be true, I am however a "volume" eater and like to have a big bowl of salad at time. Much like Elaine in Seinfeld! The big salad. In order to do this, I have kept it at mostly lettuce, then tomato, cucumber, radish celery and some carrot. I choose a healthy olive oil and vinegar salad dressing (favorite being "Garlic Expressions") and keep it at 200 calories. I don't include meat in my salads, if I were to eat any meat it is the side or the meal, still keeping me within 500 calories. It's literally the only way I personally get any vegetables!0
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darrensurrey wrote: »
There's prosciutto on their too for some added protein. Another picture I found was fig, goat cheese, and arugula, which also sounds amazing. I need to make some pizza...0 -
Shouldnt this have been retitled "Why MY salads are not as healthy as I thought"0
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Why this strange idea that because something is high in Calories it's 'Unhealthy' calories are a unit of energy not of health0
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ILiftHeavyAcrylics wrote: »High calorie doesn't mean unhealthy. A salad (or a lot of other foods) can be very nutrient dense and also be very calorie dense.
EXACTLY!!!!!!0 -
Bottom line nothing that we thought was good for us has zero calories. I thought eating fruit and veggies would be great alternative to junk food and it is but who knew the number of calories in a pear.
Anything we eat or drink is meant to be taken in moderation. The problem is most of us don't eat or drink thing in moderation. We itemize what we eat trying to take in the lowest amount of calories and for some we sabotage ourselves because we are so busy trying to limit ourselves - we forget to enjoy it too.
I agree with many of the comments made - but MFP isn't telling the original post he can't have his Greek salad. Have a very small one, have it once a week. But don't stop having things that you love simply because the caloric intake is higher than you thought.
If we all did that - life wouldn't be have as much fun.0 -
I agree with all of you! MFP is extremely useful in understanding healthy foods. I did not know bananas were very high calorie food. Same goes for granola. Salads in restaurants are desserts, not healthy foods. However, homemade salads are healthy and tasty.0
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The issue here isn't one of health... it is about properly defining what a salad IS... once that's established. it becomes a question of portion control...THE OP's assertion that "WE" think salads are healthy... anything digestible can be deemed "healthy" as long as it is NOT poisonous OR causes an allergic reaction to the majority of the consuming public.
is a garden side salad a healthy choice if the dressing has peanut oil on it and it's given to a person WITH a nut allergy? okay,,, take away the offending dressing... and sub a more appropriate dressing... is it healthy now??? what if... that person NOW eats so much he feels the need to purge? was the salad healthy? OR did the person simply engage in an unhealthy behavior?
there is ABSOLUTELY nothing unhealthy about a salad in general terms... what is unhealthy would be the OP's choice to place the blame for his lack of impulse control on a food dish.0 -
What is this 'we'?
Also, 800 calories for a meal really is not terrible. I mean, if you have a low calorie goal, it may be hard to fit it in, except occasionally. But in general, there's nothing terrible about it.
Third, portion control. The message I got from OP's post is "I put too much of everything on my salad and now it's not low calorie"
MFP makes it easy to exercise moderation and portion control by giving you a visual number that represents your food intake.0 -
The salads I make usually come in around 400 calories, including meat, cheese, and dressings. Croutons have been cut out because the serving size is WAY too small to justify using it.0
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Keep in mind that "healthy" really doesn't necessarily have anything to do with calories. Salads are generally healthy...they are full of veg, and I always add protein sources and healthy fats...they are chalk full of vitamins and minerals..and yeah, they can be calorie dense depending on those toppings and your dressing. One has nothing to do with the other. Also, one need not drown their salad in dressing...maybe it's just me, but I like tasting the actual ingredients in the salad, not just a bunch of dressing.
There are any number of foods that are nutritional powerhouses...and also calorie bombs. Conversely, there are any number of low calorie foods that offer very little in the way of actual nutrition. Caloric density doesn't necessarily have anything to do with nutritional density.0 -
I'm wondering what kind of insanity causes someone to think that bacon and cheese lose their calories if you eat them with lettuce.0
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