When you reduce calories for a diet, choose foods that contain few calories and many nutrients per serving. All lettuce is low in calories, making it a helpful diet food. All lettuces are not nutritional equals, however. The best lettuce for a diet is dark in color, indicating a higher vitamin and mineral content.
Significance
Salads made with lettuce are a popular diet food for good reason. To lose weight you need to eat fewer calories than you burn daily. Lettuce contains about 10 calories per cup. Compare this to more calorie-dense foods such as rice with about 200 calories per cup or even fruit with 80 to 100 calories per cup. You can eat large servings of lettuce to help fill you up without overshooting your daily calorie needs. When you reduce your calorie intake, you have fewer chances to get all the nutrients you need, so the foods and calories you do consume should be as nutritionally dense as possible.
Recommendations
The best lettuce for a diet is anything that is dark green and not a crisphead variety. Darker colored lettuces contain more vitamins, minerals and antioxidants. Antioxidants are compounds that help scavenge disease-causing free radicals in the body. Commonly available romaine, loose leaf and butter lettuce are dark in color and good for a diet. More exotic varieties, including arugula, endive, chicory, radicchio and mache are also good choices that contain vitamins A, C and K.
Considerations
The most common crisphead lettuce is iceberg, which is mostly water. If unaccustomed to darker greens, they may taste slightly bitter to you. Try mixing them with a combination of darker lettuces to get more nutrition. Be careful what you add to your lettuce when dieting. Heavy dressings, nuts, cheese and fried toppings add calories. They can make a low-calorie meal contain more calories than a burgers and fries.
Additional Options
You might try making salads with alternative greens. Spinach, watercress and kale are other dark leafy greens you can combine with lettuce to add other textures, flavors and nutrients to your salad. Dress your salad with olive oil or other dressings made with plant oils instead of creamy dressings. Plant oils contain heart-healthy unsaturated fats.
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