“Best and Worst Salads for Your Health”

 

IS SALAD REALLY A HEALTHY CHOICE? That depends on what you add to those greens. The right toppings can create a filling meal that’s loaded with vitamins, minerals, protein, healthy fats, and smart carbs. But other ingredients can pack in extra calories, fat, sodium, and sugar. By making good choices, you can toss together a salad that’s delicious and nutritious.

WORST: SALAD WITH CREAMY DRESSING - Dressings like ranch, blue cheese, and Thousand Island are often high in calories, unhealthy saturated fat, and sodium. A 2-tablespoon serving of a typical blue cheese dressing tacks on nearly 150 calories and more than 15 grams of fat. And many people drench theirs in a half-cup or more. The result is a salad that can serve up more fat than a cheeseburger with fries.

WORST: SALAD WITH FAT-FREE DRESSING - So, go with a low-calorie, fat-free dressing, right? Think again. To make up for flavor, they’re often loaded with extra sugar and sodium. Fat makes salads tastier and healthier. Your body needs it to take in and use certain vitamins, like A, D, E, and K. One study found that people got fewer antioxidants called carotenoids when they ate salads with fat-free dressing, compared with reduced- or full-fat dressing.

BEST: USE OLIVE OIL AND VINEGAR - Make your own dressing, and you’ll cut back on the unhealthy stuff. Start with olive oil, which has heart-healthy unsaturated fat. Whisk with balsamic or red wine vinegar, or lemon or lime juice. You can also add a little Dijon mustard or honey for flavor, and season with salt and black pepper.

WORST: CRISPY CHICKEN SALAD - A green salad with chicken may sound like a healthy meal, but descriptions like “crispy” and “crunchy” are red flags. These words are code for breaded and deep-fried, which can turn that healthy-sounding salad into a calorie bomb. What’s worse, research shows that eating a lot of fried foods can raise your chances of heart disease and type 2 diabetes.

BEST: ADD GRILLED CHICKEN OR FISH - A salad of veggies alone won’t fill you up for long -- you need protein to fend off hunger. Protein takes longer to digest, so you stay satisfied longer. Good sources include chicken breast (26.7 grams in 3 ounces), salmon (21.6 grams in 3 ounces), and shrimp (20.38 grams in 3 ounces). And make sure to grill, poach, or bake it. Some cooking methods -- like blackened or fried -- add extra butter, oil, or breading.

WORST: ICEBERG WEDGE SALAD - This is a classic. But don’t order one if you’re trying to eat light. Thanks to the blue cheese or ranch dressing and bacon crumbles, it can pack in four times the fat of a T-bone steak. It also falls short in the nutrition department. That’s because iceberg lettuce contains fewer vitamins and minerals than most dark leafy greens.

BEST: SPINACH OR KALE SALAD - When it comes to leafy greens, darker is better. They have the most nutrients. Case in point: Kale and spinach have over 10 times more immune-boosting vitamins A and C than iceberg lettuce. Not a fan of those? Turn over a new leaf: Boston, bibb, and romaine lettuces have a mild flavor, while arugula and watercress have a peppery bite.

BEST: SALAD LOADED WITH VEGGIES - Add a mix of veggies to your salad to get more nutrition and flavor. Top those leafy greens with crunchy produce like carrots, cucumbers, or broccoli. Then add a punch of color from tomatoes, bell peppers, beets, or red onion. While you’re at it, toss in last night’s leftovers, such as roasted Brussels sprouts, sweet potatoes, or asparagus.

WORST: SALAD WITH CROUTONS AND CHEESE - Store-bought croutons and bacon bits are high in salt, and they don’t offer much nutrition. Like the crunch? Try adding nuts, seeds, or crisp veggies -- such as jicama and carrots -- instead. Cheese has calcium, but it also packs roughly 100 calories per ounce. If you really want some, opt for a low-fat one, like feta or Parmesan, and add just a sprinkle.

WORST: DRIED FRUIT, CANDIED NUTS - These sweet toppings are often made with added sugar and oil. For example, an ounce of candied pecans can pack in 4 grams (1 teaspoon) of sugar. And dried fruit has less water and volume than the fresh kind. That means you get less: One serving is half a cup, or half that of fresh fruit. 

BEST: USE FRESH FRUIT AND NUTS - The fruit adds sweetness and antioxidants. The nuts give you protein, fiber, and healthy fat. This mix of nutrients makes your salad more satisfying and healthy. In fact, research shows that eating nuts regularly can help fend off heart disease and cancer. Try pairing berries with almonds, apples with walnuts, and peaches with pecans.

WORST: TACO SALAD - Some of these pack in more calories than a burrito. That’s because they start with a deep-fried tortilla shell. That “bowl” alone can have nearly 400 calories and 22 grams of fat. Then it’s filled with oversized portions of ground beef, cheese, sour cream, and guacamole. This salad can weigh in at 800 calories or more!

BEST: BLACK BEAN-AND-AVOCADO SALAD - Get all the flavor of a taco salad without the extra calories by topping it with black beans and avocado. The beans are a good source of disease-fighting antioxidants, and they have protein and fiber, as well as energy-boosting iron. Avocado adds creaminess and fiber. Plus, its fats help your body take in nutrients, including heart-healthy lycopene.

WORST: ‘SALADS’ WITH MAYONNAISE - The word "salad" in the name doesn't make it a healthy choice. Tuna, lean chicken, and boiled eggs can be good sources of protein, but that benefit is canceled out if you drown them in mayo, which is loaded with fat, salt, and calories. For a healthier version, use a small amount of light mayonnaise and some fat-free sour cream or plain yogurt. And a bit of mustard -- which has no fat or sugar -- can kick it up a notch.

TIPS FOR RESTAURANT SALADS: Many restaurants load their salads with cheese, fried onions, bacon, or croutons. Then they douse them in dressing. Even a simple Cobb salad can clock in at nearly 1,000 calories and 85 grams of fat. Check out the restaurant’s nutritional info to make a smart pick. And ask for those toppings on the side.

HOMEMADE SALADS: When you make your own, you control what goes into it. You can pile on the veggies and use healthier ingredients. Swap in low-fat turkey bacon for the regular kind, and crunchy seeds for croutons. And keep tabs of your portions of higher-calorie toppings -- a serving of cheese is 1 1/2 ounces, about the size of four dice.

REVIEWED BY: Christine Mikstas, RD, LD on August 08, 2019

SOURCES:

Lisa Cimperman, clinical dietitian, University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center.

USDA Food Composition Database.

Cleveland Clinic: “8 Ways to Make a Super Healthy Salad.”

American Journal of Clinical Nutrition: “Carotenoid Bioavailability is Higher From Salads Ingested With Full-fat Than With Fat-Reduced Salad Dressings as Measured With Electrochemical Detection,” “Sodium Content in Major Brands of US Packaged Foods, 2009,” “Fried-Food Consumption and Risk of Type 2 Diabetes and Coronary Artery Disease: A Prospective Study in 2 Cohorts of US Women and Men.”

Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics: “The Effects of Increased Protein Intake on Fullness: A Meta-Analysis and Its Limitations.

Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics: “Different Kinds of Lettuces and Greens,” “Serving Size vs. Portion Size: Is There a Difference?”

New England Journal of Medicine: “Association of Nut Consumption with Total and Cause-Specific Mortality.”

Mayo Clinic: “Make Healthy Choices at Any Restaurant.”

Journal of Nutrition: “Carotenoid Absorption from Salad and Salsa by Humans Is Enhanced by the Addition of Avocado or Avocado Oil.”

Food Chemistry: “Determination of Fourteen Polyphenols in Pulses by High Performance Liquid Chromatography-Diode Array Detection (HPLC-DAD) and Correlation Study with Antioxidant Activity and Colour.”

Palo Alto Medical Foundation: “Fast Food.”

American Heart Association: “Easy Chicken Salad.”

Much Love, Dr.Shermaine, #InformativeRead #PleaseShare #HealthyBodySoulAndSpirit #IWantYou2LiveWell #FeelFree2SignUpAndFollow

The Goal is to Always Make You Aware of What Concerns Your Body, Soul and Spirit, So You Can Have Open, Honest and Frequent Discussions With Your Physicians and Counselors. You Can’t Treat or Cure What You Don’t Know is Sick.
 
"It's Not Selfish to Love Yourself, Take Care of Yourself and to Make Your Happiness a Priority. It's a Necessity." (Mandy Hale)

"Self-Care is Not Selfish. You Cannot Serve From an Empty Vessel." (Eleanor Brown)

The contents of the WebMD and Self-Care With Dr. Shermaine Sites, such as text, graphics, images, and other material contained on the WebMD and Self-Care With Dr. Shermaine Sites ("Content") are for informational purposes only. The Content is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have read on the WebMD and Self-Care With Dr. Shermaine Sites!

If you think you may have a medical emergency, call your doctor or 911 immediately. WebMD and Self-Care With Dr. Shermaine does not recommend or endorse any specific tests, physicians, products, procedures, opinions, or other information that may be mentioned on the Sites. Reliance on any information provided by WebMD, WebMD employees, others appearing on the Site at the invitation of WebMD, and Self-Care With Dr. Shermaine or other visitors to the Sites is solely at your own risk.  

“Foods That Aren’t What You Think”

 

FOOLED BY YOUR FOOD? With so many foods available today, it can be hard to know just what you're buying. Many foods on supermarket shelves might not be what you think they are. Here are some that you probably have in your cupboard right now.

FAKE OLIVE OIL: Your olive oil may not be what the label claims: 100% pure olive oil. There’s a good chance the bottle on your pantry shelf has been mixed with other oils. Is that really such a big deal? It is if you’re allergic to peanut oil, which is commonly mixed with olive oil in an act of food fraud. If you have a peanut allergy, you could have a severe reaction to this sneaky substitution.

MAPLE SYRUP VS. PANCAKE SYRUP: Maple syrup comes from sap from a maple tree. The sap is boiled and becomes the sticky stuff you know as maple syrup. But pancake syrup (also called table syrup) is not the same. Pancake syrup’s main ingredients are corn syrup and high-fructose corn syrup, and it includes other things, like:

• Coloring
• Flavoring
• Preservatives

WASABI OR NOT WASABI: Many restaurants, especially in the U.S., serve wasabi. But most of it isn’t real wasabi -- it’s a mixture of horseradish and wasabi root with mustard flour, oil, vinegar, high-fructose corn syrup, and food coloring. The real thing comes from the root-like stem of a plant related to cabbage and cauliflower. It naturally grows in cool, moist places and can be pretty hard to come by and harvest. You have to grate the root as you eat it because the flavor usually only holds for about 15 minutes after grating.

LOBSTER VS. LANGOSTINO: While you might think you’re about to enjoy a hot lobster bisque, there’s a chance you’re actually eating langostino -- a different animal that's related to a hermit crab. It's also known as squat lobster. The taste and texture are similar to lobster. But the FDA says it can’t be labeled as such unless the word “langostino” or “squat” is also used. Langostino is about half the price of the real thing.

THE TROUBLE WITH TILEFISH: There are a few types of fish that pregnant women, nursing mothers, and young children should avoid due to mercury. Tilefish is one of them. Unfortunately, it’s easy to eat this fish and not realize it. Markets and restaurants sometimes swap it for more popular species such as red snapper and halibut.  

DRUGS IN YOUR HONEY: Food fraud isn’t the only reason some foods aren’t exactly what you think. Think about honey. It may benefit your health in many ways, sometimes as a wound dressing. Of course, it’s also a delicious natural sweetener. But it may have plenty of contaminants, including traces of antibiotics that beekeepers use on their bee broods. They won’t make you sick, but they could add to the public health problem of antibiotic resistance.

NOT-SO-NATURAL FLAVORINGS: There’s nothing natural about some of the “natural flavors” in packaged foods. Food companies make them in a lab to mimic the flavor of real foods. Recently the FDA banned several synthetic flavorings in response to data that shows health risks in lab animals. If you want to eat healthier, stick with the original natural flavors: the ones found in real, whole foods. 

THE ICKY SIDE OF SPICES: The spice jars in your cabinet are filled with more than flavorful herbs. The FDA allows a certain amount of insect fragments, rodent hairs, and other gross things in every jar. For example, ground oregano can have up to 1,250 insect pieces per 10 grams before the FDA calls it “adulterated.” (Crushed oregano can only have 300). On the bright side, most products are well below the standards allowed for these unwelcome additions.  

WHITE CHOCOLATE: Mmm, white chocolate. It's sweet and creamy. You can buy it in candy bar form or sprinkle chips of it into your cookie dough. But it's not really chocolate. According to the FDA, chocolate has to have at least 10% chocolate liquor. That's the cocoa butter and the solids you get when the cocoa bean is ground. The white kind is made of a mix of cocoa butter, milk solids, and sugar but no chocolate liquor. 

FRUIT JUICE: Often, fruit juice is not 100% real fruit juice. Make sure you check the ingredients list. If it’s a long list, that can be a clue that what you’re buying isn’t actually all that it seems. Even if the label reads "100% fruit juice," it might not be what you’re expecting. That just means everything in it came from either a fruit or a vegetable -- but it might include cheaper juices you wouldn’t expect, like white grape or apple.

VANILLA FLAVORING VS. EXTRACT: Vanilla flavoring -- also called imitation vanilla -- is not the same as vanilla extract. The extract is made with vanilla pods and a simple alcohol called ethanol. The flavoring is made with synthetic vanillin. It's almost always made from extracts based on petrochemicals or wood pulp. You may have heard of it being made from castoreum, which comes from beaver glands. But it’s so rarely used now that it's very unlikely you'll find it in foods.

ORANGE JUICE: Orange juice that’s “not from concentrate” is pasteurized. This takes the oxygen out of the juice. But this also takes out many of the natural chemicals that give the juice its flavor. Also, the producer may store the juice for more than a year. So, they hire other companies to make flavor packs to add to the juice to make it taste fresh. These packs are often made by the same companies that make perfumes. The added flavors won’t be listed as an ingredient because they're made from orange essence and oil.

REVIEWED BY: Christine Mikstas, RD, LD, WebMD on July 02, 2019

SOURCES:

Food Safety Net Services: "What is Food Fraud?"

Consumer Reports: "5 Things You Need to Know About Maple Syrup."

Chemical and Engineering News: "Wasabi."

Washington State University Extension: "Growing Wasabi in the Pacific Northwest."

Huffington Post: "That 'Lobster' You Ordered Might Not Be Lobster At All." 

SeafoodSource: "Seafood FAQ: Langostino vs. Lobster: What's the difference?"

Oceana: “Oceana Study Reveals Seafood Fraud Nationwide.”

Washington State Department of Health: “Healthy Fish Guide.”

Environmental Science and Pollution Research International: "Towards a better understanding of the therapeutic applications and corresponding mechanisms of action of honey."

Scientific World Journal: "Antibiotic, Pesticide, and Microbial Contaminants of Honey: Human Health Hazards.”

FDA: "FDA Seafood List Updates for 2017," "FDA Removes 7 Synthetic Flavoring Substances from Food Additives List,” “Food Defect Levels Handbook.”

Science Direct: "Chocolate Liquor."

FDA, CFR -- Code of Federal Regulations, Title 21, Volume 2: “Food and Drugs, Chapter I -- Food and Drug Administration, Department of Health and Human Services, Subchapter B -- Food for Human Consumption, Part 163, Subpart B, Sec. 163.130."

FDA, CFR -- Code of Federal Regulations, Title 21, Volume 2: “Food and Drugs, Chapter I -- Food and Drug Administration, Department of Health and Human Services, Subchapter B -- Food for Human Consumption, Part 163, Subpart B, Sec. 163.124."

Michigan State University: "Is your fruit juice really 100 percent fruit juice?"

Mentalfloss: "What Does '100% Juice' Mean?"

Virtual Mass Spectrometry Laboratory: "Food Counterfeiting: Vanilla Case Study."

Harvard University Science in the News: "The Flavor Rundown: Natural vs. Artificial Flavors."

WNYC: "Last Chance Foods: The Secret, Highly Processed Life of Orange Juice."

American Nutrition Association Nutrition Digest: "'Fresh' Squeezed? The truth about orange juice in boxes."

Much Love, Dr.Shermaine, #InformativeRead #PleaseShare #HealthyBodySoulAndSpirit #IWantYou2LiveWell #FeelFree2SignUpAndFollow

The Goal is to Always Make You Aware of What Concerns Your Body, Soul and Spirit, So You Can Have Open, Honest and Frequent Discussions With Your Physicians and Counselors. You Can’t Treat or Cure What You Don’t Know is Sick.
 
"It's Not Selfish to Love Yourself, Take Care of Yourself and to Make Your Happiness a Priority. It's a Necessity." (Mandy Hale)

"Self-Care is Not Selfish. You Cannot Serve From an Empty Vessel." (Eleanor Brown)

The contents of the WebMD and Self-Care With Dr. Shermaine Sites, such as text, graphics, images, and other material contained on the WebMD and Self-Care With Dr. Shermaine Sites ("Content") are for informational purposes only. The Content is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have read on the WebMD and Self-Care With Dr. Shermaine Sites!

If you think you may have a medical emergency, call your doctor or 911 immediately. WebMD and Self-Care With Dr. Shermaine does not recommend or endorse any specific tests, physicians, products, procedures, opinions, or other information that may be mentioned on the Sites. Reliance on any information provided by WebMD, WebMD employees, others appearing on the Site at the invitation of WebMD, and Self-Care With Dr. Shermaine or other visitors to the Sites is solely at your own risk.