It’s never too late to start your friendship with a salad bowl. It might seem simple to a lot of people. But there are many misconceptions concerning your green bowl of veggies that must be wandering in your mind. Let’s debunk some of these myths and make your life easier
Salad Prep Takes Forever
It is considered that salads revolve around green vegetables only. This concept is entirely wrong. If you are preparing a healthy bowl for yourself, remember to add colorful vegetables as well. Going for a rainbow-colored salad is better than a plain green one.
What is the hardest part of eating greens apart from missing your burgers? That’s right! Cutting the veggies into even shape effortlessly and in an accident-free manner.
We have seen people who don’t eat fruits and salads just because they hate the longer cutting process. Do not compromise. Get a salad cutter bowl to increase your cutting speed and stay safe from hurting yourself. You can come back to thank us later.
Salads Are Always Healthy And Diet-Friendly
It is as far from the truth as the north pole is from the south pole. Simply because salads contain veggies does not make them the best meal to have for diet-conscious people. Many times salads are full of processed cheese or topped with mustard and mayonnaise (processed ones). The preservatives in them are the most prominent myth burster that salads are always healthy.
The washing process and the oil used as dressing also correspond to the healthiness of the salad. Although the latter ones are used in small quantities, they can still contribute to the wrong nutrient intake.
Salads Are Boring
Nothing is boring if you bring your inside creativity outside. Making salads is no different. Put your heart into making yourself a bowl, and you will find it to be the most exciting meal of your day. When you think of non-boring salad recipes, a lot can be found on the internet to help you overcome your monotonous and dull cooking spirit.
Salads are made interesting with the right balance between the tangy, sweet and sour flavors. Vibrant colors and various textures in your home-made bowl will make it far better than the average restaurant salad you once ate as a mistake and never want to repeat.
Mixing Veggies With Fruits Is A No-Go Approach
One of many common myths is that combining fruits and leaves is the wrong approach, but it is the other way around. The best way to elevate a salad is to add thinly sliced apples or chopped chunks of pineapple. This addition increases the juiciness of the salad and gives a mouth-watering experience.
You can choose from easy fruits and vegetables to grow for your backyard and have your kitchen garden make salads. Remember that going out of balance can ruin your salad, so try to find the right equilibrium between the two, unless you are going for a pure fruit salad.
Salad Is An Alternative To A Meal
Mixing fruits and veggies in your salad is not enough to consider as an alternative to your lunch or dinner. This approach will make your diet deficient in proteins and carbs, which is an unhealthy way of eating.
If you consider replacing salad with your daily meals, ensure that it contains the right amount of proteins like chicken, carbohydrates like sweet potato, leave like radish, and fruits like an apple in it. A healthy and balanced diet through good choices should be your mantra. You are free to experiment with a variety of ingredients keeping in mind to make it a whole instead of going for a single nutrient.
Salads Are Low In Calories
It is acceptable that salads have fewer calories than the butter chicken you eat at family gatherings, but not as less as you think. Salads that are so full of seeds, nuts, cheese, olive oil, and poultry that they lose their true essence of having green leaves and fresh fruits are loaded with calories so much that they exceed that of burgers and chips.
A traditional Steak Ceaser salad has almost 400 calories depending on the ingredients used. On the other hand, 100-gram beef steak contains a maximum of 291 calories. This Mount Everest of calorie difference between two dishes is enough to burst the bubble of people thinking salads are low in calories.
Eating Only Salad For Weight Loss
Salads that include nuts, greens, and seeds are no doubt healthy but are also high in calories. Weight loss is not related to a single type of meal, eating which will shed all your excess weight and make you suddenly come back to your Body Mass Index (BMI) range.
Overeating salads will lead you nowhere, can be irritating because of eating the same thing again and again. It is essential to bring other items into your daily lifestyle to have a healthy weight loss. A workout routine accompanied by a proper diet plan, which is to be followed with utmost honesty, is necessary to reduce weight.
Getting Food Poisoning From Salads Is Impossible
Food poisoning through salads is just as common as it is from eating meat or any other product. The raw ingredients of salad can be laying the ground for many types of harmful bacteria such as E.coli. These bacteria, if consumed, can cause health problems rushing you to the hospital.
It is equally important to wash everything edible, be it fruits, vegetables, or meat products, to protect yourself from getting sick.
Salads Are Not Fulfilling
Of course, salads will be unfulfilling if you eat the greens only, but while preparing, think of it as a whole meal, and you will know how to make it into a satisfying meal portion. A bowl of salad can be whatever you want it to be. Salads can be a mixture of proteins, carbs, fruits, veggies, beans, and nuts. If all these seem insufficient to you, then you must not be eating a human’s diet.
The nutrients like fiber and excess water content in the salad are enough to fill your hungry tummy.
Organic Salad Is Better
Choosing organic salad over fresh one may be the choice of many people around us, but the increased nutrient level in an organic salad is not the valid reason behind this choice. From the time veggies and fruits are picked from the farm, they start losing the rich nutrients like Vitamin B and C. By the time they reach our bowls, they have significantly fewer benefits than the products freshly picked from the farm yesterday. For example, lettuce harvested from the farm yesterday will have many more nutrients than an equal-sized organic lettuce head that was picked a week before.
Bottom Line
Salads have a lot of myths circulating in the general public. These myths are sufficiently discussed above. next time someone comes to you saying they only eat salad to stay fit, remind them of the disadvantages of such a diet routine on their health. If someone comes with a Ceasar salad bowl arguing that it is the most healthy meal, let them know of the total calorie count and debunk the myths stored in their heads for such a long period. Adopt a balanced diet schedule to be in your best health.
Photo by Hermes Rivera on Unsplash
About the Author/s
The New Jersey Digest is a new jersey magazine that has chronicled daily life in the Garden State for over 10 years.
