- Start with dark, leafy green lettuce — stick with a mix of spinach, arugula, and romaine. If you must have the “crunchy” kind from iceberg (head lettuce), then add this along with the dark, green leafy lettuce.
- Add shredded carrot. This adds much needed nutrition as well as color to your salad.
- Slice up tomatoes or add a handful of grape small round ones– they are sweeter.
- Add avocado. Avocado does contain a higher fat content–but it is a necessity fat that we need. To avoid weight gain, use avocado in place of another high-fat topper, such as cheese
- Add a variety of beans for extra protein. You can add some canned garbanzo, black, or kidney beans. Make your own by cooking and freezing into containers or buy just plain canned in water and salt.
- Think color when choosing other vegetables–colored peppers, shredded beets, and purple onions.
- A hard boiled eggs adds extra nutrition to salads as well, Just choose one per salad.
Adding the extra’s like cheese, croutons, thick creamy dressings, and crunchy toppings add extra calories and unnecessary stuff into our bodies. It is fine for doing the occasional salad or even just to try and get our families to eat them. But, we should focus on just enjoying the flavors from the variety of vegetables. You can retrain your taste palette to like anything, but it takes a few times. I used to only enjoy iceberg lettuce, shredded cheese, Baco’s, and ranch for my salad. I thought I was doing myself a favor eating that, but now I know it was not the healthiest choice to consume. When going to make your salad, think basic–simpler—closest to nature, when choosing your toppings.
