Worst salad dressing choices!
- Dietitian.Lauren Hmede
- Mar 27, 2019
- 4 min read
The Worst Salad Ingredients for Weight Loss
Reduce Salad Calories by Skipping These Toppings
Dieters choose salad always as a healthy appetizers or even main plate to their diets. But wait unfortunately salads at restaurants become unhealthy due to unhealthy salad dressing and ingredients. The result will be extra calories and fat in addition to extra weight.
Salad Calories
· Basic iceberg lettuce salad with tomatoes, cucumber, carrots, red pepper and low or zero-calorie dressing (such as lemon juice or vinegar): 125 calories
· Oriental chicken salad with crispy chicken: 1440 calories
· Grilled chicken caesar salad: 770 calories
· Taco salad: 830 calories
· Cobb salad: 1130 calories
· Greek salad: 500 calories
Ingredients, salad dressing and serving size change calories and nutritional facts of salad.
If you aim to lose weight you need to stay away from unhealthy salad dressing as they offer extra fats, calories with no-nutritional value. Replace them with more healthy ingredients.
Bacon
The bacon add a whopping of 400 calories and 30 grams of fat to the total nutrition. This depends on how much bacon you are adding but in general adding bacon to salad boosts fat intake.
Many processed bacon (flavoured) bits aren't really made out of meat, so they provide no nutritional benefit. In fact, some contain a mixture of trans-fat, salt and, believe it or not, sugar! So skip the salty, fatty toppings and add crunch and flavour with savoury vegetables like radishes or peppers.
Croutons
Croutons add unwanted calories and fat to your salad as well with non-nutritional value.
If you're making your own salad, be wary of crouton brands that look healthy or low in calories.
The serving size listed on most crouton nutritional facts labels is just two tablespoons. That's about two croutons! If you add the number of croutons that most people add, you'll probably add 100 or more calories in bread and oil.
If you like crunchy taste you may replace croutons with nuts that add texture and fibre to your salad.
Crispy Anything
Chicken, fish and tuna are all healthy ingredients until they are fried so they become loaded with extra calories and fat.
You need to become a smart menu reader and to know very well the cues. Foods that are "crispy," "battered," "breaded," "crunchy," or "crusted" are almost always fried. If you're not sure, ask your server. Ask to substitute a grilled item instead.
Creamy Salad Dressing
Even if you fill your salad bowl with healthy, nutritious ingredients you can easily ruin it with a creamy dressing. Check out the calorie counts of these popular flavors.
· Blue Cheese: 146 calories, 15 grams fat
· Ranch Dressing: 126 calories, 14 grams fat
· Thousand Island: 114 calories, 11 grams fat
· Green Goddess: 128 calories, 13 grams fat
Note that fat-free salad dressing are loaded with sugar and there is no big calorie difference between them and full-fat version. Some run as high as 60-80 calories per 2 tablespoon serving.
If you love dressing stick to healthy choices like vinegarate or even make you own at home.
Processed Deli Meats
It is a good idea to add protein to your salad but not processed meat. A single thin slice of salami adds 43 calories and 3 grams of fat to your waistline. While those numbers don't seem very high, a typical meal-sized salad can easily have 4-5 slices worth of salami on top.
If you like deli-meat on your salad, stick to chicken, turkey or even ham. All deli meats are high in sodium so if you aim to cut back on sodium intake you need to avoid this choice of salad.
Wontons
Many restaurant use the Asian salad style with vegetables and lean chicken but unfortunately they add fried wontons so the result will be extra calories and fat.
Don’t skip your favourite Asia style salad instead ask to have it without added wontons. You'll save yourself 100-200 calories and 7-13 grams of fat by leaving wontons out.
Taco Bowl
It is difficult to find healthy taco salad but what you can do is to skip fried taco salad. Not only is it messy and unnecessary, but an 8-inch fried taco shell adds 220 calories and 11 grams of fat to your meal.
If you want to build a healthier taco salad at home, use a regular bowl and fill it with healthier taco meat.
Use marinated chicken breast or lean ground turkey. Limit your serving of cheese to just one ounce and your serving of avocado to 1-2 tablespoons. Flavour your salad with spicy peppers, fresh tomatoes, corn and crunchy greens for a diet-friendly tex-mex meal.
Honey Glazed Foods
A great way to make healthy salad an unhealthy one is to coat it in honey. You might see honey-glazed chicken or honey-glazed ham on some salad menus, but more often, you'll see honey-crusted nuts.
If you aim to lose weight and to keep your sugar intake under control then you need to avoid these ingredients even they add sweet taste yet they add a lot of calories.
If you like nuts you can still enjoy a handful of raw almonds or walnuts to get a crunchy taste without extra calories and sugar.
Cheese
We all know that cheese is nutritious and a common cheese added to salad is cheddar which is a good source of both protein and calcium yet it is high in saturated fatty acid. If you like cheese taste in salad you may enjoy it in a small portion and if you are not good at estimation then skip it!
If you like to add cheese to your salad you need to rad nutrition facts to make sure it is a real cheese with nutritional benefits and then use a digital scale to make sure about the serving size.
Beef
Beef is a part of healthy weight loss diet. Unfortunately beef added to salad at fast-food restaurant is not lean and contains a lot of saturated fatty acids and calories.
So if you like beef taste in your salad try to add lean cuts. If you like the meaty taste of ground beef in your salad you can also try using lean ground bison or lean ground turkey.
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