It is a fact that salad is a healthy food. Your salad becomes healthier if you pay attention to particular points for preparing your salad right. Here are some tips for you...

 

7 secrets of healthy salads

There are some specific rules to prepare a salad, which should always be a part of your meals for your health. You damage your health rather than improving it if you do not follow these rules. It is hard to believe, but you can even gain weight instead of losing, if a salad is not prepared correctly. Follow the below-mentioned rules while preparing salad.

 

Do not use sauces in the salad

Salad accelerates the bowel movements and helps the digestive system function faster while it rejuvenates the body by excreting the toxins. Moreover, it ensures feeling of fullness by filling the gastric capacity thanks to its fiber- and water-rich content. It ensures long-term fullness for people who eat a low-calorie diet. However, salad can cause weight gain, although it is essential for diets due to its low calorie content. Sauces added onto the salads can cause a threat due to high calories along with many additives they include. Therefore, it is reasonable to add pure olive oil and lemon as well as some cider vinegar to the salads and avoid any other sauce.

 

Carefully wash the salad ingredients

Salads strengthen the immune system through high concentrations of antioxidants and fiber and protect the body against many diseases, especially cancer. However, leafy green vegetables can pose risk of many diseases. Thus, washing the salad ingredients on the sink without due attention can pave the way for many hazards. For example, pesticides used to protect the foods from harmful organisms can remain on the foods when they are not washed properly and these substances can cause diseases and even result in death in humans. Wash leafy green vegetables under running water and wait them into a container filled with abundant water and vinegar. Pour the dirty water after a while and wash them again under the tap one by one.

 

You assume they are natural, but...

Do not assume 'These grow in garden, they are natural and clean', which is false. The fact that the greens grow in garden does not mean they are healthy and organic. Because, the water that is contaminated by sewage can cause diseases such as diarrhea and moreover, harmful wastes from the exhaust of the vehicles can remain on the greens sold in roadsides and thus, salad ingredients can become unhealthy.

 

Chop the ingredients with a wooden knife

Use wooden knife rather than a metallic one while chopping the greens. The optimal method is to chop with hands. Metals cause loss of vitamins and minerals in greens and those values are very important especially for children, pregnant women and breastfed infants. The optimal approach is chopping the greens in large pieces rather than small ones.

 

Do not wait the salad too much

As those foods lose nutritive value quickly, the ideal way is to prepare right before eating and the serving should not be more than you will eat. However, if you want the salad to be ready at home after busy days, wash the greens and salad ingredients properly, put them into a freezer bag, close the bag tightly or close the cover of the container in which you put the salad ingredients after preparing them.

 

Do not use the chopping board you use for meats when preparing salads

As salads are consumed raw, be careful to wash the chopping board before each use. Besides, use different chopping boards for different foods. It is very important to use different chopping boards for meat and raw vegetables. Otherwise, a microorganism contaminating the chopping board can pass to your salad and cause disease.

 

First wash and then chop

Raw vegetables and salads should be carefully washed and then chopped with hands or with a few knife movements. Amount of Vitamin C especially in leafy green vegetables reduces very quickly due to some factors such as impacts and warmth. Thus, we should first wash spinach and lettuce in appropriate conditions and then consume them after chopping.

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