8 Foods to Avoid at the Salad Bar

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Whether you are trying to lose weight or just trying to eat healthier, the salad bar is the go-to choice for lunch. It’s healthy, and it’s usually loaded with options to help you turn your “rabbit food” into a filling and satisfying meal. Unfortunately, some of those delicious looking items sitting on the salad bar aren’t healthy choices.

It’s a classic mistake made both by those new to dieting and veteran healthy eaters. You load up your plate with a little of everything from the salad bar and never give a second thought to what was really in your lunch. After all, it’s all from the salad bar. That means it’s all healthy, right?

Wrong. Foods high in calories, fat, sugar, sodium and preservatives all lurk in salad bars. In fact, some of those foods are such common additions to salads that a salad bar without those options looks incomplete. If you add those unhealthy salad bar options to your leafy green lunch, you might well eat salad every day and find yourself gaining weight or fat. Before you start skipping breakfast or go buy a new scale, think about what items you are grabbing from the salad bar. If you want to keep your salad healthy, here are eight foods to avoid at the salad bar.

Creamy Dressings

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Who doesn’t love a salad smothered in a thick, creamy dressing? There’s a reason that ranch dressing wins the award for “most popular salad dressing” with Caesar, bleu cheese and Thousand Island not far behind. Unfortunately, these classic tastes are a bad idea if you are trying to keep your salads healthy. Creamy salad dressings are high in fat and calories. One tablespoon of ranch dressing packs 73 calories and eight grams of fat. Bleu cheese dressings are even worse with 76 calories and eight grams of fat per tablespoon. Don’t be fooled by those fat-free dressings either. Fat-free dressings tend to be packed with artificial ingredients and high in sugar. Skip the creamy dressings and drizzle a balsamic or raspberry vinaigrette on your salad instead. If you find you absolutely have to have a creamy dressing, use a very small amount and pick a strong taste, like bleu cheese or peppercorn, so a little dressing will go a long way.

Cheese

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What salad bar doesn’t have at least one or two cheese options? Salad bars can have anything from a small shaker of parmesan to whole section dedicated to cheeses. While cheese makes for a delicious topping on a salad, it is unlikely to help you keep your salad healthy. Cheese contains a lot fat in a relatively small serving size. In fact, whole milk cheese is more than 50 percent fat and has the calorie count to match.

If you are one of those people who has to have cheese on their salad, don’t despair. Cheese is a good source of calcium and so is not a totally “empty” addition to your salad. That said, do your best to keep the fat content of your salad to a minimum. Use two percent cheese if you can find it. If your only options are whole milk cheeses, pick a strong cheese such as bleu cheese, parmesan, sharp cheddar or feta. The rich flavors of such cheeses means a little bit goes a long way and helps you keep from adding too much cheese.

Croutons, Crispy Noodles, Tortilla Strips and Wontons

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These tasty toppers have no business ending up on a healthy salad. Crispy noodles, tortilla strips, wontons and their various cousins are all deep fried, and nothing is more antonymous with “health” than “deep fried.” Given that such toppers are often made with white, refined flour, those crunchy additions to your salad wouldn’t have been healthy choices even before they went into the fryer.

Croutons are not deep fried which makes them a slightly better choice than wontons, crispy noodles or tortilla strips. Unfortunately, classic croutons are not a truly healthy topper for your salad. Most croutons are filled with empty calories. Those crunchy additions will raise the amount of calories in your salad but they won’t stay with you for very long.

A healthier alternative to croutons, crispy noodles or wontons is raw nuts. Cashews, almonds and walnuts add a tasty crunch to a salad. While nuts are higher in calories, they are packed with protein and will help keep you full throughout the day.

Bacon and Bacon Bits

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Most people are aware that bacon is not a healthy choice. It is a naturally fatty cut of meat. Anyone who has cooked bacon has seen the grease left in the pan or on the plate. All that fat will go a long way toward ruining the health benefits of your salad.

Bacon bits or bacon crumbles aren’t necessarily a better choice than a slice of bacon. The “bacon” bits or crumbles that most salad bars offer aren’t even really bacon. Most bacon bits are made from imitation bacon that is high in sodium and preservatives without being much lower in fat content than normal bacon.

Try adding smoked salmon to your salad instead of bacon. You’ll still get that same smoky flavor, but you’ll get a meat that’s loaded with protein and omega-3’s instead of packed full of fat. If you’re someone that absolutely has to have bacon on their salad, choose turkey bacon over pork. Turkey bacon has the same smoky flavor and crunchy texture as pork bacon, but turkey bacon has noticeably less fat.

Candied Nuts

Raw nuts, such as walnuts or cashews, are a wonderful addition to any salad. Nuts are packed full of protein that will help your cold, leafy lunch stay with you throughout the day, and they contain healthy fats that are good for your heart. If raw nuts are unavailable, lightly salted nuts are a good alternative as long as you watch the sodium in the rest of your ingredients.

The sheer variety of healthy nuts can make it easy for you to add a scoop of candied pecans to the top of your salad and think that you still have a healthy lunch. Unfortunately for your taste buds, those candied nuts are not a healthy choice. Candied nuts, unlike their raw or lightly salted counterparts, are packed full of sugar. One ounce of candied almonds can contain more than 10 grams of sugar. Dump one good sized scoop of candied cashews to your salad, and you may as well have piled chocolate on top.

Dried Fruits

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It’s fruit, so it has to be healthy, right? Unfortunately for fans of “healthy” sweets, dried fruits are not a healthy addition to a salad. Sugar is usually added to fruit to help speed the drying process. This means that dried fruits such as craisins, mango slices and peach halves, have far more sugar and a lot more calories than their fresh counterparts. Dried cranberries, often called craisins, are one of the most common additions to a salad. One fourth of a cup of craisins, however, contains up to 130 calories and 29 grams of sugar.

Fresh fruit is a different story. One large strawberry is only six calories and 100 grams of sliced pear contains less than 60 calories. Fresh fruit will give your salad the same hint of sweetness that dried fruit would without all the extra calories. Changing from putting dried fruit on your salad to using fresh fruit will also help you avoid a sugar crash later in the afternoon and keep you more productive during the 3:00 p.m. slump.

Olives

Some people love olives. They order them on pizza, in drinks and cheerfully pile them on top of salads. Unfortunately, olives are not a healthy choice. Before they are ready for grocery store shelves or salad bar trays, both black and green olives are cured in various salt mixtures. These salty baths enhance the olive’s natural flavor, but they leave the resulting fruit high in sodium. A half cup serving of black olives contains more than 730 milligrams of sodium, and a half cup serving of green olives contains over 1,550 milligrams of sodium. A small scattering of olives over your salad could count for more than half of your recommended sodium intake.

Despite their high sodium content, olives contain heart-healthy fats just like nuts. If you are insistent about putting olives on salads, look for reduced sodium or low salt olives in the grocery store. These are much healthier alternatives to traditionally canned or jarred olives. Unfortunately, most salad bars don’t offer reduced sodium olives, so you might have to skip the olives when you go out for lunch.

Pasta and Potato Salads

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Pasta and potato salads are a staple of any potluck or picnic. They are rich, creamy and oh-so unhealthy. Most potato and pasta salads are made with globs of mayonnaise and packed full of fat as a result. A half cup scoop of potato salad contains nearly 200 calories, and pasta salads often have even higher calorie counts per serving.

Some homemade pasta and potato salads are made with Greek yogurt or low-fat mayonnaise which drops the calorie count down considerably. Unfortunately, these more health-conscious, altered recipes aren’t likely to be found at a restaurant’s salad bar. Most pasta and potato salads at salad bars are not only high in fat, but they are also filled with preservatives and sodium.

“Healthy” alternatives such as quinoa salad and couscous salad may not be a lot better. While such grain salads usually contain less mayonnaise, they often contain dried fruits that push the calorie count back up. Most salad bar grain salads are also packed full of sodium and preservatives. When it comes to non-leafy salads, your best bet is probably to stay away unless you know exactly how it was made.