Salad has come to represent healthy eating for many people – for better or worse. If you aren’t a natural salad eater, you may understandably view the green option as an undesirable alternative to your favourite foods, but finding out a little more about why salad is so vital for a healthy diet could help turn your opinion around.
Experts agree that substituting unhealthy options for salads is one of the quickest and easiest ways people can make big changes to their diets. You’ve probably heard that you should eat your ‘five a day’ of fruit and vegetables, and even a regular-sized salad can tick off two or more of these in one simple sitting.
Eating salad regularly can increase levels of antioxidants in your blood, including vitamin C and E, and you can boost your vital system even further if your salad contains raw vegetables, such as carrot. There have also been many studies demonstrating a clear link between consumption of fruit and vegetables and reduced risks of diseases such as cancer.
Unlike some healthy eating options, salads aren’t inconvenient or expensive either, and can now be found almost anywhere – even in fast food restaurants like McDonalds. All good restaurants will feature salads on their menus, and they are usually included as a standard accompaniment to many meals too, so there’s no excuse for not being able to find a healthy option next time you eat out.
Salads are also very easy to prepare at home, simply by following salad recipes. A good green salad can take less than five minutes to prepare, even when it includes ingredients such as carrots and other vegetables. You can also make salads for different occasions – either as the precursor to a meal, or as the main component of a meal itself, when you experiment with adding meat and dressings.
Many people often wonder just how much salad is enough for a balanced meal, but this can be easily worked out if you use a calorie calculator to measure your personal intake. A large salad will usually be around 500 calories, but you can raise this by adding more protein such as chicken or fish, or lower it by making a smaller side salad of 300 to 400 calories. Just because there’s a lot of green on your plate doesn’t mean you’ll be eating too much, as green vegetables are very low in calories.