Many people know that having a salad can be a healthy choice, especially if you are focused on clean eating. But what makes having a salad so beneficial to your health? Here, we explore that exact question, helping you see what healthy salads can do for you.
Healthy Salads Help You Get Enough Fruits and Vegetables
Some people struggle when it comes to eating enough fruits and vegetables to maintain a healthy diet. Having a fresh salad every day can make it easy to get all of the servings you need, plus it supports a clean eating lifestyle.
Dark leafy greens and brightly colored vegetables ensure you get a range of vitamins and minerals, helping you to maintain a healthy body and mind. They are also overflowing with antioxidants, important chemicals in the fight against cancer-causing free radicals. To get the most benefit, try to keep the majority of the ingredients in their raw form. These pack the biggest punch when it comes to creating a truly healthy salad, plus they're full of flavor and satisfying crunch.
Vegetable and Fruit Salads are Full of Fibre
Fiber is a wonderful thing; it helps you feel full longer and can provide a range of health benefits. For example, a fiber-rich diet can help alleviate and prevent constipation and lower cholesterol. It can also make it easier to maintain a healthy body weight which reduces your risk of developing heart disease and diabetes. Your blood sugar levels may also stay more even, helping to prevent cravings for sugary foods.
Healthy Salads Cut Calorie Consumption
For people interested in losing weight, adding a healthy salad to every meal can be an excellent way to go. As mentioned before, a salad contains valuable fiber, which helps you feel full and satisfied. And, if you start a meal with a salad, you’ll have less room for higher-calorie options that form the rest of the meal.
Dark, leafy greens are very nutrient-dense, meaning they provide a lot of nutrition with a limited number of calories. That means a salad with a large serving of spinach, kale, or Romaine creates a strong foundation for weight loss. Just make sure to use higher calorie options sparingly. Cheese, nuts, and dressings can add a lot of calories quickly, so use enough to get a sense of the flavor and texture and stop there. However, many other fruits and vegetables can make a salad exciting and satiating without allowing you to pack on the pounds, so explore your clean eating options and choose items that leave you feeling satisfied
You’ll Get Access to Good Fats
While salad ingredients can contain fats, most of them are of the healthier varieties than you find in items like meat. For example, olive oil, nuts, and avocados all have fat, but of the monounsaturated variety. These not only help you feel more satisfied, but they also ensure your body can absorb other key nutrients found in fruits and vegetables more effectively.
Certain vitamins are fat-soluble, meaning they need fat to be present to aid absorption. Vitamins A, D, E, and K all fall into this category, so you need to consume an appropriate amount of healthy fat, like omega-3, to make sure these vitamins are making it to critical body systems.
Phytochemicals also seem to be easier to absorb when combined with healthy fats. These important chemicals help protect the body from conditions like cancer and heart disease, so eating enough fat to get their value is important, just make sure it is a healthy version, like the above mentioned monounsaturated options or the polyunsaturated variant found in soya beans, walnuts, and flaxseeds.
A Salad Provides Water
Some people are surprised to hear that fruits and vegetables are actually great sources of water. In fact, watermelon and strawberries are around 92 percent water while cucumber and certain lettuces are a startling 96 percent water. Eating a combination of vegetables and fruits will high water content can help you stay hydrated even if you don’t have the opportunity to grab a glass of water to drink. Plus, the water consumption from foods does count towards your daily needs. So, if you aren’t getting multiple glasses of water during the day, choosing a salad can help make up for it.
Further, the vitamins that aren’t in the fat-soluble category are water-soluble instead. This means they need water to be absorbed by the body. This group includes the range of B vitamins, including riboflavin, niacin, B12, and folic acid, as well as vitamin C.
Other fruits and vegetables with high water content include grapefruit, peaches, oranges, tomatoes, spinach, and broccoli.
Salads Can Cool You Down
Whether it is a traditional lettuce-based version or a fruit salad, the cool ingredients can help you feel refreshed during the summer heat. Often, as temperatures rise, hot meals become less appealing. But consuming healthy ingredients is critical all year round if you want to maintain optimal health.
As you can see, fitting healthy salads into your diet provides a variety of benefits. Not only are the packed full of healthy nutrients, but they can also help you feel full, give your body better access to vitamins and minerals, assist you with weight loss, and even keep you cool.