With the holidays over, you may feel the inspiration to start a healthier lifestyle for the new year. Did you know eating one salad every day is one of the most healthy eating habits you can adopt? It’s also the most simple. Salad is super convenient and a great way to work in a couple of servings of vegetables and/or fruit. Salad is a staple on the menu of almost every restaurant and can be made at home in 5 minutes. Plus they are cool, crunchy, and fun to eat with lots of textures colors and flavors. Customize them with your favorite fruits and vegetables and enjoy your lunch every day!
Here Are A Few Healthy Reasons to Eat Salad
Fiber, Fiber Fiber!
Fiber is a carbohydrate that the body can’t digest, so it passes through the body undigested. You may not think that something you can’t digest can be good for you, but fiber helps to regulate the body’s use of sugars. A high fiber diet helps to lower cholesterol levels and prevent constipation. Plus, eating more fiber helps you feel fuller, eat less, and lose weight. Tell me that isn’t something you want after eating one too many Christmas cookies?
Healthy Fruits and Vegetables
In general, Americans need to eat more fruits, vegetables, and legumes. Well, you’re in luck because these are all popular salad ingredients. If you frequently eat green salads, you’ll have higher blood levels of antioxidants, especially if your salad has raw vegetables. Antioxidants, like vitamin C, vitamin E, folic acid, lycopene, and alpha- and beta-carotene, help protect the body from damage caused by free radicals.
Cut Calories and Be Satisfied
If you want to lose weight, start with a green salad. It may be a no-brainer, but eating a low-calorie first course, like a green salad, enhances your feeling of fullness and reduces the total number of calories eaten in one meal. Bigger is better, as long as it’s a bigger volume salad and not larger in the number of calories. More veggies and less dressing and fatty add-ons will take your salad to it’s healthiest and help you lose weight.
Smart Fats
Gasp! Yes, we are telling you to eat fats. A little good fat, like monounsaturated fat in olive oil, avocado, and nuts, along with vegetables helps your body absorb phytochemicals like lycopene and lutein. A study showed that salad with 2.5 tablespoons of avocado helped eaters absorb eight times more alpha-carotene and 13 times more beta-carotene than those eating salad without avocado. If you choose to have a little olive oil on your salad, you may increase your lifespan. A diet that includes plenty of olive oil and raw vegetables is linked to reduced mortality in people aged 60 and older.
When you visit us at Pie-O-Mine/Greens, you’ll be able to select all of your favorite fresh ingredients, your protein, and your dressing. Then, you’ll experience the satisfaction that comes from watching all of your ingredients get chopped up and combined together for a healthy salad.
