The unhealthy side of salad

A salad often seems like a healthy choice, but many are loaded with high calorie ingredients.
When we think of a salad, we often picture a beautiful bowl of leafy greens tossed with other colourful veggies like orange carrots, purple onions, bright red tomatoes and yellow bell peppers. A salad like that is the picture of health. But there’s an unhealthy side to salad, too. The term salad is used so loosely these days almost anything tossed together in a bowl can be a salad, as long as there’s something coating it, flavouring it or holding it together.
Some salads on restaurant menus have nary a veggie in sight—just an overload of meat, cheese and heavy dressing. Some salads start out with good intentions, in the form of leafy greens and mixed veggies. But then they’re loaded down with crispy noodles, fried chicken strips, cheese or bacon. And if you were to eat at your favourite restaurant with a buffet salad bar, chances are you’ll go for the standard cream dressing that is delicious, although on the sweet side.
The problem with many salads is that they’re loaded down with fat, so it helps to know where all that fat is coming from. 
Nutritionist Susan Bowerman offers some tips for choosing a salad that is both delicious and good for you.
 Ditch the fatty proteins. When you see the word “crispy,” as in crispy chicken strips, it’s just a nicer way of saying “fried.” So, if you’re having a salad with protein in it, look for salads containing chicken, shrimp or fish that’s grilled rather than fried. And watch out for other high calorie proteins, too. Foods like sausages or fatty cold cuts often make their way into salads.
 Avoid high-fat extras. Many restaurant salads are overloaded with lots of extras that can make the calorie count soar. These fatty calorie bombs include cheese, bacon, fried tortilla strips, crispy fried noodles, onion rings, sour cream and oily croutons.
 Choose dressings carefully and use sparingly. Dressings are one of the quickest ways to undo the nutritional value of a healthy salad. Creamy or cheesy dressings can cost you 75 calories per tablespoon, and many restaurants serve as much as eight times that amount. And since that’s what we’re given, many of us assume that’s a normal portion. But few of us can, or should, afford the additional calories and fat that a half-cup of creamy dressing adds to the mix. Always order your dressing on the side, and choose lighter vinaigrettes over creamy dressings. Also, try the fork-dip method: dip your fork into your dressing, take a stab at your salad and repeat. You’ll get a little taste of dressing with each bite, but you’ll be surprised at how little you actually use.
A salad with lettuce, grilled chicken, a few spoons of black beans, a dab of guacamole and some salsa can be a healthy choice. And it will probably only cost you about 400 calories. 
But get your salad fully loaded with creamy dressing and served in a fried tortilla shell, and the calorie count triples to more than 1,200.
Similarly, a shredded chicken salad might sound healthy, since it usually includes just greens, and chicken breast. But it’s the huge amount of creamy dressing that sends the fat and calorie count soaring. Keep your dressing portion to around a tablespoon, and you’re looking at a reasonable number of calories. For example, a serving of Caesar salad contains bacon, cheese and croutons, so be aware of the calorie count. If you eat the salad as the restaurant serves it, you’d be eating more than 1,000 calories. That’s the fat equivalent of a huge slice of cheesecake and large fries.
“When it comes to choosing a salad, the bottom line is this: just because a dish is called a salad, doesn’t automatically make it healthy. So, don’t let the word salad sway you. When making your choice, pay a little less attention to what it’s called and a lot more attention to what’s in it,” Bowerman says.