If you want to lose weight, you often turn to the salad. It is considered healthy and low in calories – but that’s only partly true. Because some ingredients turn the meal into a real calorie bomb, here you can find out what you should pay attention to when preparing and consuming it
Order a salad with your colleagues for lunch instead of pasta. You will surely get a couple of respectful looks – because many inevitably associate the green leaves with a low-calorie, healthy and disciplined diet. Various fattening foods are responsible for the fact that this is not always the case, making the healthy meal as toppings or dressing a real calorie bomb.
But where exactly are the salad traps lurking? You can avoid these 5 things so that your salad remains an excellent weight-loss food.
The Dressing
The salad dressing can without question be called the number one hidden fattening food. Ready-made salad dressings, which are included in packaged salads from the supermarket, for example, can contain up to 10 grams of fat (per 30 grams) and countless calories.
The reason is that the sauces are often based on mayonnaise or crème fraîche, making even a tiny portion of leafy lettuce a fat bomb. When visiting a restaurant, it makes sense to order the dressing separately so that you can dose yourself – or to order the salad with just vinegar and oil.
Instead of buying ready-made sauces in the supermarket, you should use the dressing shaker yourself when losing weight. Then you know exactly what’s inside. Making a delicious salad dressing is much less time-consuming than many think.
The classic vinaigrette, for example, is low in calories and easy to prepare – and it also tastes perfect.
Bread
In itself, bread is a good side dish for a salad. However, there are a few things to watch out for to not fall into a calorie trap.
White bread is less filling than whole-grain bread – and contains far fewer nutrients. Therefore, it is better to use the entire grain version as a side salad. Dips or butter with bread is also not recommended if you want to keep your salad as low in calories as possible.
It gets even healthier and fresher if you bake the whole wheat bread yourself. Whether gluten-free, with chia, protein bread or sourdough – only those who bake themselves know what’s inside.
Meat
A leaf salad with grilled chicken or turkey breast is a great lunch: The meal provides vitamins and a lot of protein. When trying to lose weight, however, you should make sure that the meat is not breaded.
Because the shell of breadcrumbs ensures a good load of unnecessary extra calories, a large Caesar chicken salad in a fast-food restaurant, for example, has 406 calories – around 100 more than a cheeseburger.
Cheese
Cheese is found in many of the most popular salads: Greek Salad (Sheep Cheese ), Chef Salad (Gouda), Caesar Salad (Parmesan), and Tomato Salad with Buffalo Mozzarella. These types of cheese can quickly catapult the calorie content of the salad upwards.
For example, 100 grams of Gouda has around 350 calories and 30 grams of fat. Buffalo mozzarella has 375 calories and just under 31 grams of fat. Therefore, it would help if you kept an eye on the amount of such fatty cheeses in the salad.
Unique low-fat cheeses are a healthier alternative for all cheese lovers who don’t want to do without it entirely in salads. Fine cream cheese or cottage cheese are also suitable.
Ready Croutons
Tiny croutons, lots of calories: you’d hardly believe it, but 50 grams of croutons have around 240 calories – and 20 grams of fat. The reason: The small bread cubes are usually fried in plenty of oil.
Therefore, it is better to forgo it in the restaurant – and instead, use self-made crunchy cubes for the preparation at home instead of garnishing with ready-made products from the supermarket.
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