Just How Healthy Is Your Salad?by Michele Cheplic | More from this Blogger 24 Jul 2007 09:53 AM I'm really not a burger and fries kind of person. Which is not to say that I don't indulge in high calorie foods, it's just that when I pig out it's usually on pulled pork and bread pudding. The rest of the time I simply have a salad. Wait! Don't stop reading. I'm not bragging... I'm segueing. For months (nay, years) whenever I was forced to eat at a fast food restaurant (I must confess I despise fast food restaurants but I have a kid who loves McDonald's fries-hence our visits) I would order the salad. I did so simply because I figured it was the healthiest option listed on the huge fluorescent menus. Little did I know... Okay, confession time: I have been hooked on McDonald's Crispy Chicken Bacon Ranch Salad for months. I love it. Greens, carrots, chicken-good eats! Lately, though, I have wondered how good for me my weekly fast-food break really was. Okay, brace yourselves all you McDonald's Crispy Chicken Bacon Ranch Salad lovers. If you add the ranch dressing, the salad weighs in with a hefty 51 grams of fat and 660 calories. Wait! It gets worse. A Big Mac has 34 grams of fat and 590 calories. So my so-called healthy salad has just 70 fewer calories than a Big Mac. UGH!! Information to make your stomach ache. And if it doesn't hurt now wait until you read what else I discovered. Perhaps, it will make you pause before you dig into that next restaurant salad: Burger King's Tendercrisp Chicken Salad has 400 calories and 21 grams of fat. And that's before you add dressing! Wendy's Southwest Taco Salad has 680 calories. Taco Bell's Taco Salad in the fried bowl contains 840 HUGE calories. That's equivalent to eating a McDonald's double cheeseburger and fries. Quizno's Flatbread Cobb salad with the dressing contains nearly 900 calories. Chili's Chicken Caesar has a whopping 1,000 calories. Ruby Tuesday's Carolina Chicken Salad also has 1,000 calories as well (which by the way, is half your calories for the whole day) and that's before you add the dressing. The Barbecue Chicken Salad from the Cheesecake Factory may be the worst when it comes to calories---it contains 1,100 calories without the dressing. So what's the moral of this blog? Stop eating salad at restaurants? Not quite. However, if you are counting fat grams and calories, it is a good idea to scrutinize what's in the salad you are eating. (Many restaurant chains provide nutritional information to diners prior to taking their orders.) Bottom line: If you stick to veggies, lean meats, and other protein sources such as lentils and garbanzo beans, and stay away from drowning it all in creamy dressings (opt for oil based dressings instead), you'll end up with a filling, healthy salad. Related Articles: Chinese Buffets---Nutritional No-No's Fast Food Kids' Meals---How Healthy Are They? Is There Such A Thing As A Healthy Hamburger? Learn more about Michele Cheplic  Michele Cheplic was born and raised in Hilo, Hawaii, but now lives in Wisconsin. Michele graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a degree in Journalism. Relevanthealth tags User Comments pmc63 (25) 27 Jul 2007 07:00 AMIn Australia we have "double" quarter pounders from McDonalds. They have more than 50g of fat in each burger..... I do not know what "pulled pork" is, but is the "bread pudding" the same as our bread & butter pudding? If so, I am a major fan of that. Make it with Skim milk so it is not quite so bad :-) Cheers Paula  Michele Cheplic |
Health categories |
