When it comes to salad, the word itself sounds healthy: light, quick, easy to digest. But beware — a salad does not always equal a healthy choice.
Did you know that the average salad at your favorite restaurant contains about 1,000 calories, 12 or more grams of saturated fat, and a load of sodium? On the other hand, a cheeseburger made with 93% lean ground beef, American cheese and a bun contains only 8 grams of fat, 44 grams of protein and about 40 grams of carbs depending on your choice of bun. Total calories? Depending on the condiments you load on, about 350. Broken down, a burger is a much better choice.
Check out these salad options that are really not so healthy:
- Crispy chicken Caesar salad: Even before you add the salad dressing (about 200 calories), this salad can easily reach 700-plus calories, just from the crispy chicken pieces. Add the creamy dressing and this salad can exceed 12 grams of saturated fat.
- Southwest fiesta salad: Typically, this type of salad (which also may go by Santa Fe style or just fiesta) is essentially a deconstructed taco or burrito loaded with cheese, rice and tortillas strips, not to mention add-ons like guacamole and sour cream. This salad it can run anywhere from 600 to 1200 calories, 14 grams of saturated fat, and more than 1400 milligrams of sodium.
- Asian grilled chicken salad: Sounds pretty harmless right? The name is deceptively healthy, but add-ons like fried noodles, almonds and a sodium-filled Asian-style vinaigrette add up to over 1,200 calories, alarmingly high sodium and more than 12 grams of saturated fat.
- Buffalo chicken salad: Just like the beloved bar food it's named after, this fried chicken and blue-cheese-covered salad is full of calories and sodium, not to mention a lot of fat. There can be more than 1,200 calories and over 4,300 grams of sodium, depending on where you order it.
- Taco salad: Like its fiesta cousin, this salad is basically a deconstructed taco, which in some ways is worse because you can fit a lot more high-fat toppings in a salad bowl than in a taco shell. With 900-plus calories, a typical chicken taco salad provides about half the calories the average adult needs in a day. The fried taco shell is a major source of calories, contributing around 390 calories by itself.
- Greek salad: While a Greek salad has a lot of “healthy” ingredients, the additions give it its flavor and appeal. Feta, stuffed grape leaves and olives can add hundreds of extra calories and grams of fat. This salad may start with a 300-calorie base, but just the olive oil in the dressing racks up 200 calories. 2 ounces of feta adds another 150 calories.
- Cobb salad: This salad sometimes contains grilled instead of fried chicken, putting you on the proper path, right? Wrong. Let's talk blue cheese, bacon, whole eggs, avocado and creamy dressing. It all adds up to hundreds of calories and a high amount of saturated fat.
- Steak salad: If you're a red meat lover, it's really hard to turn down a steak salad. It seems to be a nice mix of healthy and hearty. But once again, the added blue cheese and creamy dressing packs on hundreds of calories and around 16 grams of saturated fat.
The moral of the story? It's really good to understand exactly what's in your salad before you deem it a healthier choice over a burger.
