The Hidden Peril of the Salad Bar

December 11, 2009

From gingerbread houses and sugar icing to green salads in the span of one post! How’s that for a smooth transition!

But more than I love gingerbread I love salad. I’ve probably spent the better part of four years accumulated time grazing over the grocery store salad bar in my life time, and being a certified, card-carrying overeater (a little is fine, more is always better) I can go overboard even when it comes to munching greens.

Case in point. For about six years my food plan included three weighed and measured meals a day with no snacks (similar to what I’m doing now but with two 100-calorie snacks added), and dinner consisted of 4 ounces of protein and 16 ounces of vegetables. A couple times a week D and I would head to the nearby grocery store salad bar and since there wasn’t a food scale nearby I’d create a salad masterpiece that I thought looked like it was around 16 ounces. Well, we came home one night from the store after doing this for months and just for fun I put my container of salad on the kitchen scales to see how close I was in my visual calculations. The answer? Not too close. Instead of weighing somewhere, anywhere, in the ballpark of 16 ounces I had managed to stuff 33 ounces of veggies into one of those little cardboard boxes. That’s right! I was eating over two pounds of salad in one sitting which when you think about it would be an ample bowl of salad to take to a church potluck.

Just another example of the power of my self-denial that basically got me up to 325 pounds in the first place. “Oh yeh, that looks like 16 ounces,” I’d tell myself as I used a construction crane lift or a support brace on my back to hoist it from the salad bar to my dining room table!

But I’m learning. I’m learning that 16 ounces of salad is a loosely packed, as opposed to jam-packed, salad in the salad take-home container. Oh, and I’ve learned that the last 1/4 of the salad bar located near the salad dressing is not for me. For me, those are just inedible decorations on the salad bar but not food for my salad box. You know what I’m talking about….the bowls of cheese, raisins, nuts, cheese, olives, croutons, cheese, crunchy carb thingies, and did I mention cheese?

Let’s do the math.

A tossed mixed vegetable salad has less than 100 calories in 16 ounces. That’s a good deal people when you think that a bowl of salad (lettuce, mushrooms, sprouts, tomatoes, green beans, carrots, radishes, pepperoncini, onions, cucumbers, jicama, celery…) has less calories than 2 Oreos and we’re not even talking Double-Stuff Oreos.

So take that bargain basement 100 calorie sweet deal and add just 1 ounce of crumbled blue cheese, 1 ounce of cheddar cheese, and a small spoonful each of raisins, dried cranberries, walnuts, pumpkin seeds and olives and the salad, without dressing, climbs to 781 calories. If that sound like an excessive amount of extras to you, it’s really not. In fact I’ve watched people at the salad bar who make the majority of their salad from the last quarter of the salad bar than from the first 3/4 ’s of it.

And salad dressing? Depending on which dressing you choose on the salad bar, from their low-fat offering to the full deal Caesar or Blue Cheese, that healthy vegetable salad easily breaks through the 1000 calorie ceiling, unless you opted for the balsamic vinegar but you didn’t did you? I never did. And by the way, that’s based on using 4 tablespoons of salad dressing which in often the equivalent of one of the salad bar salad dressing ladles. Am I the only person on the planet who has been known to double-ladle? Oh. I’m the only one? Really?

So I love my salads even when with my self-imposed ban on the last 1/4 of the salad bar but the dilemma has continued to be what to do about the salad dressing especially when I’m focusing on reducing my added fats. I tried the spray salad dressings but I might as well have been hosing water on my salad for the little flavor they offered. I’ve used a scant amount of the name brand low-fat, reduced-calorie dressings and tried to stretch them for a little more salad coverage with apple cider vinegar but after a week or so grew tired of the acidity of the vinegar.

And then about a month ago it happened. A miracle at the end of aisle 6 between the pickles and mustard.

I saw these new salad dressings by Galeos on the shelf, checked out the back label and when I saw that the calories were between 14-22 calories per tablespoon I bought a bottle of each to try out and, word to your mother, they are AWESOME! There’s Caesar, Ginger and Wasabi, Dijonnaise, and Toasted Sesame Seed and Honey. The favors are so intense I never use more than 2-3 tablespoons at a time and if I choose to stretch them with apple or rice wine vinegar the acidity doesn’t overpower the taste. My favorite is probably the Toasted Sesame Seed dressing because it’s sweet, smoky and is wonderful on a salad that includes apples, but I’m still experimenting. Tonight’s chicken was marinated in the Dijonnaise with a little non-fat sour cream. Oh. Yum.

Posted in Eating In, Food Products and Gizmos