Salads Gone Wrong!

Sometimes a salad is more than a salad. Sometimes it’s pure sugar disguised as healthy fare. Take these three popular unhealthy choices:

Applebee’s Grilled Shrimp and Spinach Salad
Ordering this is like getting caught speeding on a road with no posted speed limit signs. Everything looks free and clear. Check out those health words: Grilled! Spinach! Salad! A great example of how sugar sneaks up on us even when we think we’re eating healthy.

Nutrition: 1,000 calories, 66 g fat (10 g saturated), 67 g carbs, 12 g fiber, 50 g sugar, 44 g protein

That is about 10 teaspoons of sugar!

Another sugary bad choice?

Chili’s Caribbean Salad with Grilled Chicken

What could be wrong with this? It’s got grilled chicken and it’s a salad, right? The sugar content in this salad is equivalent to eating nine donuts worth of sugar!

Nutrition: 720 calories, 28 g fat, 4.5 g saturated fat, 1170 mg sodium, 86 g carbs, 9 g fiber, 69 g sugar, 36 g protein

Another sugar storm in salad form…

California Pizza Kitchen’s Full Moroccan-Spiced Chicken Salad

It’s made of grilled chicken, beets, sliced almonds, carrots, and SUGAR…3.5 times the recommended amount!

Nutrition: 1,500 calories, 99 g fat, 10 g saturated fat, 1380 mg sodium, 128 g carbs, 27 g fiber, 80 g sugar, 43 g protein

These all have the potential to be healthy choices. You just need to know where the sugar hides. In these salads, it’s hiding in the dressing. To decrease the sugar content, order dressings on the side and use sparingly. Or, ask for no dressing and lemon wedges. And remember, there is always oil and vinegar. Again, just use sparingly.