How healthy is your salad?

Like Paris and Nicole, salads and diets are big BFF’s. But just because these pairs may look good together from the outside, it doesn’t mean the relationship is always a healthy one. The Good Life Dietitians give advice on how to make sure your salad remains healthy, full of nutrients, and low in kilojoules.

Go green

The salad greens form the base of any healthy salad and may actually make or break the salad altogether. Most people think salads are dull and tasteless, which they very well may be if your greens are limited to boring butter lettuce. Choose from a great variety of salad leaves on the supermarket shelves, from green to purple colours. Be creative and try salad greens such as watercress, bak choi, endive, romaine lettuce, and so on. Add rocket, fennel, basil and coriander for great added flavour, decreasing the need for energy-dense salad dressings.

Avoid unnecessary calories

Surprisingly, even salads at a restaurant can be laden with unnecessary calories by the addition of croutons, bacon bits, onion sprinkles, cheese, cheesy salad dressings, mayonnaise, and fried seafood or chicken. Look for garden salads with more vegetables than high fat ingredients such as these.

Go easy on olives, nuts and seeds. As great as these foods are for ensuring fat intake of the healthy kind, they are still loaded with calories- everything in moderation. Chose low-fat or (even better) non-fat dairy instead, as dairy products like milk, yoghurt and cheese are important sources of calcium. Other energy-dense yet healthy fat considerations are olives, seeds and avocado.

Add colour with veggies

Add a variety of vegetables in different all colours of the rainbow. This will not only add to a variety of flavours on the palate, but also make the salad more visually appealing as well as improve your intake of essential vitamins and minerals. The more exciting and flavourful the salad, the less the need for dressings.

Use a variety of cooked and raw vegetables for a range of textures and crunchiness. Lightly steam vegetables. When cooking simply sprinkle with olive oil and roast in the oven or cook lightly in a non-stick pan. If you choose to eat them raw, remember that the freshness is optimal.

Portion sizes

The portion of the base of the salad (i.e. the greens) is not as important as the other contents. Bulk up on salad greens and leaves with basic ingredients such as tomato, cucumber, carrots, and red onions. Then have a light hand with the olives, avocado, nuts or low fat cheese as these might add loads of energy to an otherwise healthy salad.

Add a lean protein to salads such as grilled chicken breast, smoked salmon, tinned pilchards, beans, boiled egg, or lean biltong.

Healthy salad dressings

There are two things to consider of salad dressings: fat content and salt content. These two aspects are particularly important if you are at risk of heart disease. Some “light” salad dressings are very low in fat but will set you back with loads of sodium unknowingly.

Skip all of these unwanted fats, calories and salt by requesting for your salad to be undressed. Add a splash of balsamic vinegar or freshly squeezed lemon and olive oil with some black pepper, instead of a pre-prepared salad dressing. Other oils with good fats include oils from avocado, walnuts, canola, rapeseed and soybean, among others,

Don’t drench the salad in dressing. Remember that the salad dressing is not there to disguise that you’re eating a salad, and should instead enhance the flavours in your salad.  If you build a good salad, it will taste delicious needing only minimal dressing and seasoning to enhance flavour.