There are plenty of good reasons to eat a salad – but I know that if I don’t make salad eating easy, it’s less likely to happen.
I went a stretch of days without eating a salad (gasp!) and it took me a second to realize it was because I’d fallen behind on food prep.
I’m all caught up now though! A bunch of greens have been torn up and washed and are ready to go – now I’ve got a couple days worth of leafy handfuls to throw into large bowls and then doll up for quick and healthy meals.
I like lettuce and spinach and kale of course – and I especially love the way greens help make running feel easier. But what I really love greens for is their high fiber content and the glorious way they stretch the stomach. A stretched stomach triggers that release of hormones that signal fullness – and I’m all about finding and then flipping that “it’s time to stop eating” switch.
And because greens are so low in calories, you’ve still got a bunch of calories to spend on other satisfying stuff – especially foods that are higher fat, because fat also helps with the feelings of fullness and satiety.
Today’s “satisfying stuff”: hard boiled egg, hemp seeds and some roasted red pepper Sabra hummus. Other salad toppings included a shredded carrot, some grape tomatoes from the garden and a few steamed beets for more colors, flavors and textures.
The greens were first coated with a couple of splashes of efa oil and apple cider vinegar for a wilty head start to help a girl out in the chewing department. I’ve come to discover that a salad loaded with a bunch of fun toppings needs only a little bit of dressing.
I can have boat loads of lettuce in the fridge, but if it’s not torn up and ready to go when I’m hungry – it might as well be invisible. Prepped greens are always seen and therefore much more likely to be devoured.
Do you do hydroponic? There’s a guy at the Westside market that sells a nice, ready to go salad mix. It keeps for more than a week (yeah, it takes us that long to go through one bag!). I find that unless I get the ready to go stuff we don’t eat salad at all. It so makes a huge difference.
I do sometimes buy ready to go salad greens, I love how easy they are when I have them! I don’t love them for their price though… so I usually only get them if I have them on sale. I’ll check out the market the next time I’m there – thanks!
ohhh I have had the same realization. I eat salad at most meals when I can’t think of anything better to eat.. but this week I haven’t been and I realized it was because tom bought a salad mix with mostly iceberg lettuc and blech pointless!! Plus I like my dark varieties of greens and spinach (we buy the pre-made mixes of those) and I just realized that I don’t even really LIKE the texture of iceberg at all anymore. But yes, I keep my salad and veggies all pre-cut in a big giant bowl in the fridge. It has a tight fitting lid and salad seems to last a long time in there (but I usually finish it in a week) Oh and I eat my salad out of a similar blue batter bowl, so it always makes me laugh when I see that bowl in pictures
big salads are meant to be eaten out of mixing bowls!
Your post is SO true! I don’t know how many heads of lettuce have turned into some sort of science experiment in my fridge. I buy the huge tubs of baby spinach and those never go bad. I just grab handfuls and put them in most everything. I eat my salads right out of the huge salad spinner container.
You really don’t need dressing when it’s filled with toppings. Nothing like a big salad with tons of toppings. 