A big fat salad?

Nuts, cheese and dressing pump up calories and sodium too

By Christine Arpe Gang

gang~gomemphis.com

June 25, 2003

link to article

More salad choices await health- and calorie-conscious customers at quick-serve restaurants.

Next to the fat-laden burgers, chicken sandwiches and french fries, salads provide a fresh, crisp alternative.
But are they all healthful and low in calories?

Not necessarily.

"People think all salads are healthy so they think they don't have to pay attention to labels but they really do," said Linda Pennington, a registered dietitian who is vice president of Dietitians Associates, a firm that offers nutrition counseling and other services.

Calorie counts on a lot of the salads are reasonable but fat and sodium content sometimes soars, she noted.

Some salads can have as much as 1,900 milligrams of sodium, a concern to hypertensives who typically restrict their sodium intake to 2,000 milligrams for an entire day.

A diet with a moderate amount of fat typically allows up to 60 grams of fat per day. You can enjoy most of the salads with reduced-fat, low-calorie or "lite" dressing for about 20 grams of fat or slightly less. That represents a third of the fat grams for the day, a reasonable amount, Pennington said.

Pennington and Carolyn Foster, a dietitian and nutrition consultant at the firm, agreed to sleuth six salads from several fast-food restaurants in search of excess fat and calories.

They found the salad choices and dressing selections matter a lot.

A McDonald's Crispy Chicken Bacon Ranch Salad with Newman's Own Ranch Dressing has more fat and calories than a Big Mac: 661 calories and 51 grams of fat compared to 590 calories and 34 grams of fat in the Big Mac.

The same salad ordered with grilled chicken instead of fried and light vinaigrette instead of ranch dressing weighs in with 360 calories and 12.5 grams of fat - a profile that works well as an entire meal in a healthful diet plan.

Sherry Swords of Memphis said she didn't look at the calorie and fat count on the packet of ranch dressing she poured over her McDonald's salad with crispy chicken last Sunday.

"I'm not on a diet but I do like salads," she said. Even so she was surprised to learn the calorie and fat count in her lunch was as much as a Big Mac.

She and her co-workers at Telerhythmics Monitoring Service often get take-out salads from various quick serve outlets during the week.

"Then I use the low-fat dressings we keep in our refrigerator at work," Swords said.

Pennington and Foster came up with strategies for making sure the salad you order isn't full of fat and calories.

Cheese, bacon bits, nuts, seeds, croutons and fried chicken instead of grilled are ingredients that should raise a caution flag, the dietitians said.

"Seeds and nuts actually contain a good kind of fat," Foster said. So if calories aren't a concern, don't worry about them.

But if they are, bear in mind the tiny packet of sunflower seeds that goes with the Char-Grilled Chicken Garden Salad at Chick-Fil-A adds 80 calories and 7 grams of fat to the salad.

Croutons, which are little bits of toasted bread, seem innocuous. But the crouton packet at Chick-Fil-A is for 2 servings with 35 calories and 1 grams of fat per serving. If you eat the whole thing, and most of us would, figure 87 calories and 4 grams of fat.

Cheese adds fat and calories but also flavor. The bleu cheese in the California Cobb at McDonald's contributes so much flavor you can use much less dressing and still enjoy it.

"When you're making salads yourself, use cheese that's finely shredded," Pennington said. "You'll use less and it's easier to distribute it throughout the salad."

But of all the salad add-ons, dressings are the weightiest.

They can range from a slim Light Italian at Chick-Fil-A with 20 calories and less 1 gram of fat to the hefty Newman's Own Ranch at McDonald's with 290 calories and 30 grams of fat. The fat grams in the dressing alone represent half of what's recommended in a moderate diet.

Portions are important with dressings, the dietitians noted. Most people will be satisfied with a lot less than the entire packet.

Many of the salads contained tasty little grape tomatoes, which Pennington and Foster note are great for their lycopene content.

"The darker the greens the more vitamin A," Foster said.

Caesar-style salads with romaine lettuce have more nutrients than salads containing only iceberg lettuce. McDonald's is using varied greens mixes with arugula and red leaf lettuce.

The new Southwest Chicken Caesar salad from Wendy's has a sprinkling of roasted corn kernels and black beans but not enough to add much fiber, Foster noted.

Foster and Pennington, who sampled six salads, said all of them were appealing.

"I'd be happy with any of them," Foster said.

Wendy Jolly almost nixed her children's request to have lunch last Sunday at the McDonald's in Germantown.

"I wanted to go somewhere else until I remembered they had these salads and then I said OK," said Jolly, who is on the Atkins Diet.

She chose the Grilled Chicken Caesar salad.

Pennington sees one drawback to salads at quick serve restaurants.

"You can't eat them while you are driving down the road."


- Christine Arpe Gang: 529-2368