Hello, this is Monica Reinagle, and you are listening to the Nutrition Diva podcast.

Welcome.

A big salad can be the healthiest meal of your day.

An examination of the Enhanced Dietary Survey data finds that people who eat salads tend

to have higher intakes of fiber, vitamins A, C, E, K, folate, colon, magnesium, and potassium.

Their entire diets score six points higher on average on the healthy eating index, and

they have higher intakes of vegetables, beans, whole fruit, protein foods, and fatty acids.

So when it comes to nutrition, salads rule.

But it is also possible for salads to seriously miss the mark.

If certain key ingredients are missing, your salad may be little more than a bowl of

chewable water that leaves your stomach growling after 45 minutes.

But then at the other end of the spectrum, too many high-calorie, low-nutrition ingredients

can easily turn a salad into a dietary disaster.

So today, I want to offer you six tips that will help you build a great salad every

time, one that delivers lots of good nutrition without too many calories, but also keeps

you satisfied until your next meal.

And in this episode, I'm specifically focusing on entre salads, ones that constitute the

main part of your meal as opposed to, say, a side salad, although a lot of these tips

would apply to side salads as well, including this first one.

Step one is to build a better base.

Now, you don't necessarily have to build your salad on a bed of leaves, but if you do,

make sure those greens are pulling their weight.

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