Replacing any meal with a simple green salad will save a lot of calories, but too much of it may actually deplete your body of some essential nutrients it requires to function at a core level. A salad-heavy diet must contain a wide variety of toppings and ingredients to meet your body's caloric and nutrient needs.
Greens
Inexpensive iceberg lettuce holds very little nutritional value. Even romaine lettuce, with its basic leafy makeup, is still consistently at least twice as nutrient rich than an equal amount of iceberg lettuce. Spinach is another popular lettuce leaf, and despite the occasional food safety concerns, like the salmonella recall in September of 2009, it holds abundant nutritional benefits. One cup of raw spinach contains just 7 calories, over half of your daily vitamin A and is very high in vitamin K.
Vegetables
A trip to any salad bar in a restaurant will give you a vast number of colorful and tasty toppings to put on your salad. Just because you already pre-loaded your plate with green lettuce, doesn't give you a license to skip out on crispy, healthy vegetables. Cherry tomatoes and carrots are all low calorie salad veggie toppings. Tomatoes contain high traces of the anti-oxidant lycopene, which according to a 2005 published report in the Harvard Public School of Health, can reduce your chances of developing prostate cancer. Carrots contain beta-carotene, which according to MayoClinic.com, is essential for vision.
Protein
The United States Department of Agriculture recommends that all adults eat at least 0.4 g of protein daily for every pound of body weight. Lettuce and vegetables contain not nearly enough protein to sustain this kind of intake, thus, some form of protein needs to be added to your salads on a regular basis. Chicken breast is a high-protein, low-fat option that can satisfy your protein needs quickly and efficiently. One cup of cooked chicken breast contains just 231 calories, while packing in 43 g of protein and only 5 g of fat.
Dressing
Salads are only healthier than a burger if healthy toppings are chosen. Just 2 tbsp. of ranch dressing contains 140 calories, and 14 g of fat. That's 5 g more fat than you'll find in a 1/4 lb. grass-fed patty of ground beef. Instead of loading up on fatty dressing, a healthy salad diet has to make use of "wet" toppings smarter. A lite version of Italian dressing contains just 50 calories, and only 5 g of fat. According to a study published in the "American Journal of Clinical Nutrition" in 2003, women who ate oil and vinegar based salad dressings regularly, reduced their chances of developing coronary artery disease by as much as 50 percent.
Balance
The body requires 13 vitamins to operate on a daily basis. These 13 vitamins have to be taken in through a balanced diet that pulls from all six major food groups. Salads, even those with a large variety of toppings, still only cover three to four of these groups. Grains provide your body with complex carbohydrates essential to fueling your body's muscles. Dairy provides your body with vitamin D, calcium and healthy forms of protein like whey and casein that can only be found in milk. A salad-heavy diet can only be sustainable if you follow a balanced caloric intake.
References
- My Fitness Pal: Calories in Romaine Romaine Lettuce
- My Fitness Pal: Calories in Spinach - Raw
- Defending Food Safety: Possible Salmonella Concerns Prompt Voluntary And Precautionary Spinach Recall
- "The Journal of Nutrition": Tomato Products, Lycopene, and Prostate Cancer: Edward Giovannucci: August 2005
- Mayo Clinic: Beta-Carotene
- UCLA Dining: Be A Protein Pro
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