Salad buffet at the office cafeteria?

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Rachaely
Rachaely Posts: 113
in Food and Nutrition
I struggled at even naming this topic, but my general question is: what is everyone's opinion on salad buffets? We have a cafeteria at my new place of employment. I've never ordered a hot lunch, and instead go straight to the salad buffet. I typically build a salad of romaine, spinach, veggies, and light or fat free dressing. Sometimes I add chickpea's or imitation crab for protein, sometimes a few croutons for crunch. Is there something hidden within the spinach leaves or am I safe to trust the quality and nutrition?

I assume the soup is loaded with sodium, but I'm skeptical of the salad bar. I just feel like it's too good to be true!

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  • charityateet
    charityateet Posts: 576 Member
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    Hi love! I have salad bar every Wednesday and love it! I load up on vegis and beans and cooked turkey or ham and top it with red wine vinegar. Yum!
  • Rachaely
    Rachaely Posts: 113
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    How do you calculate nutrition? I mean, you can't weigh it; do you just average/guess? Vinegar would be a good idea for the dressing. I don't trust the fat free ranch. It's just too good to be FF!

    xo!
  • charityateet
    charityateet Posts: 576 Member
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    No, I just do like - lettuce green leaf or iceberg or both, shredded - in cups. Then the vegis, I estimate. I do baby corn, usually you can do by the piece or 1/4 cup - same with the beets and 4 bean salad - the crab where I go is more of a crab salad (ohhh so good!) so I pick one in the data base that is higher than imitation crab (usually someone has one that is made with mayo in here). Either way, when I do a very large salad - even over estimating (I'm sure I figure it a little bit high) I end up with about 400 calories.

    I stay away from potato salad, mac salad, cheese, cottage cheese, marshmallow anything (lol) and dressings I just don't really care for so that's why I use the vinegar - but I'm sure a clear or fat free dressing would be ok (in moderation).
  • alyssamiller77
    alyssamiller77 Posts: 891 Member
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    I follow cat's approach as well when I go to the cafeteria's salad bar here at work. I'll enter "Romaine Salad" or "Iceberg Salad" (whichever is appropriate) and then for any spinach, tomatoes, cheese, dressing or anything else I just add those separately. Of course I have to guess because I don't know which brand would be most accurate, I usually choose one that's middle of the road for calories and just figure it's close enough. We're only talking about 100-150 cal total with dressing so I'm not too worried about it.

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