That “Healthy” Restaurant Salad? It May Be the Most Unhealthy Thing on the Menu
Many restaurant salads pack sugar and damaged fats that can stall weight loss, crash your immune system, and harm your gut.
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Ask nearly anyone about the healthiest options on restaurant menus and they’ll likely mention salads.
Ordering a big entrée salad at your favorite neighborhood bistro might sound healthy. Many restaurants even include salads on the “healthy menu” to entice you to order. Your dining companions may commend you for making a smart choice.
Unfortunately, that salad might be a massive fat bomb.
As you’ll see, many restaurant salads pack enormous amounts of sugar, damaged fats, and other nasty ingredients that make them anything but healthy.
What “Healthy” Ingredients In Your Salad are Sabotaging Your Success?
Read most salad descriptions on the menu and you’ll find a dizzying array of “kitchen sink” ingredients.
In all fairness, some of them are fine, such as sliced avocado, tomato, cucumber, and pretty much any green vegetable.
Others are blatant red flags. “Candied” nuts and dried fruit are dessert, period. Topping a salad with Craisins® might give your salad a little zing, but you’re essentially adding concentrated sugar.
Likewise, anything crunchy — things like fried onion strings — suggests unhealthy fats and/or empty carbohydrates. Ditto for meats. “Crunchy” and “glazed” are code words for sugar drenched.
And then there’s bread. Most entrée salads also include croutons or another type of bread, which is gluten and empty carbs. While putting a warm, gooey croissant on your salad is easy to remove, I recommend taking that one step further and asking your server not to add it.
But even “healthy” salads pack potential food intolerances, including cheese and corn. If you can tolerate eggs, hard-boiled eggs are fine. If you can’t, you’ll want to ask your server to leave them out.
Then there’s the base. Many restaurants are notorious for using inexpensive ingredients like iceberg lettuce, too. (If you see “mixed” lettuce in a salad, chances are it includes iceberg.)
Overall, those restaurant salads have to compete with other menu items like burgers. They know you’ll fall for that salad’s healthy glow… even if it’s anything but.
Let’s call it like it is.
When you add things like dried cranberries and candied walnuts to your salad, you’re essentially adding dessert to your entrée.
When you’re eating deep-fried chicken or teriyaki glazed salmon, you’re undoing all the healthiness of that salad’s good ingredients.
And food intolerances like corn and dairy can create inflammation, mess with your gut, and create nasty symptoms.
The Dressing is the Deal Breaker
If you really want to turn your salad into a sundae, top it with a dressing loaded with added sugar and damaged fats.
When you buy dressing at the grocery store, you can easily read labels and put back those with nasty ingredients (which, unfortunately, includes most commercial salad dressings).
At restaurants, you don’t have that option… and your server probably doesn’t know what the heck is in those dressings, either.
Even innocuous-sounding dressings, such as balsamic vinaigrette, often contain added sugars and other nasty ingredients.
In my Sugar Impact Diet book, I wrote about how balsamic vinegar comes in two varieties.
Authentic, traditional balsamic vinegar has been made in Italy for hundreds of years. It’s expensive and harder to find, which is why most restaurants don’t serve it.
Instead, they serve “condiment balsamic vinegar,” made from white wine vinegar with caramel coloring (for color and added sweetness) and thickeners like cornstarch and gum.
Other dressings come packed with oils that are rich in inflammatory omega-6 fatty acids. These oils, such as safflower and soybean oil, come with a health glow because they come from a vegetable.
They’re anything but healthy:
“Commercial, processed, refined vegetable oils are among the worst foods on the planet, and we’ve been told they’re ‘healthy’ because they are ‘polyunsaturated.’ Don’t believe it for a minute,” says Jonny Bowden, Ph.D., in The 150 Healthiest Foods on Earth.
In his book Food Fix, Mark Hyman, MD, says that these heavily refined vegetable oils “are unstable, easily oxidized, processed with heat and toxic solvents, and can be inflammatory.”
I’ve written about inflammation here. Acute inflammation, which occurs when you cut your finger, is helpful and may even save your life.
But when inflammation lingers when the body no longer needs it, a deadly type of inflammation called chronic inflammation can result.
The biggest driver of chronic inflammation? It’s at the end of your fork.
If you’re loading your salad with things like candied walnuts, dried fruit, breaded or glazed meats, and croutons, you’re stoking those inflammatory fires. Douse that salad with the wrong salad dressing and you’re adding more fuel to the fire.
5 Simple Restaurant Salad Swaps
Fortunately, you can transform an unhealthy restaurant salad into a much healthier one with a few simple tweaks.
Banish any idea that healthy salads need to be bland or boring. The key is to be a little creative and approach the menu as suggestions, not absolutes.
Most restaurants will easily modify a salad according to your requests.
First, identify what ingredients you don’t want in your salad. Be warned that some restaurants don’t list specific ingredients, so it’s up to you to ask.
Let’s say you order what sounds like an Asian chicken salad. Ask whether the chicken is breaded or grilled. Is it swimming in sugary teriyaki sauce? Does it contain a sweet dressing? Are there crunchy toppings?
Be very specific. If your server becomes irritated or uncertain with your questions, find something else to order… or find another restaurant.
Second, swap out the unhealthy ingredients for healthier ones. Here are five guidelines to help modify your salad:
- Swap out your iceberg lettuce for Romaine or other dark, leafy greens. With leafy greens, darker is better. If the menu doesn’t say what kind of lettuce that salad has, ask.
- Swap out your fried, breaded, or glazed protein for grilled or baked protein. This is an easy swap that most restaurants can accommodate.
- Swap out your salad dressing for extra-virgin olive oil and vinegar. Almost every restaurant salad dressing contains added sugar and damaged fats. Play it safe and ask for a bottle of oil and another of vinegar, so you know exactly what you’re getting. When you can, ask for organic, cold-pressed oils in dark bottles.
- Swap out your candied walnuts for raw or slow-roasted walnuts or other nuts. You’ll get the same yummy crunch without the added sugar.
- Swap out your dried fruit for sliced avocado. Yes, avocado is also a fruit… but a low Sugar Impact fruit that’s high in monounsaturated fat and fiber.
One last suggestion: Really pile on those green veggies! A salad provides ample opportunity to load up on cruciferous veggies and other nutrient-packed superstars.
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The views in this blog by JJ Virgin should never be used as a substitute for professional medical advice. Please work with a healthcare practitioner concerning any medical problem or concern. The information here is not intended to diagnose, treat, or prevent any disease or condition. Statements contained here have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration.
*These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.
