A great staple to anyone’s diet is to include salads into their weekly snack, lunch or dinner food choices. Why? Well, by choosing a healthier salad option, you can positively promote positive life style choices in a path to maintaining a healthy weight, gaining healthy vitamins and minerals through raw whole foods, and getting nutrients through a clean and organic food source. This doesn’t mean go to Taco Bell and get the Taco Salad with some sort of gross cream sauce. When working with our Personal Training Clients in the Napa Valley, salads are very quick and easy compliment to anyone’s diet.
There are many benefits to making your own salad from scratch including knowing exactly what is in your food. This is an empowering ability to make your own food and be responsible for what types of healthy items are being put into your food plate in front of you. Not only are you responsible for what goes in your plate in front of you, but you can choose foods that you like and thinks taste good too!
Here is a list of some of the staples in salads that we promote to our Personal Training clients at Napa Tenacious Fitness.
- Arugula, spinach or baby butter lettuce. These leafy green vegetables are loaded with vitamins and minerals that are critical for the well being of the human body. Pick which ones you like the most and throw two handfuls in your salad bowl! Eat as much as you want to help you not feel as hungry and promote healthier choices throughout the week.
- Nuts of some sort- shaved or blanched, cubed almonds are great. Raw walnuts are another great option because of the meatiness they add to a salad. Pistachio and cashews are also great additions to any salad. Nut are awesome for various reasons but we are mentioning them right now due to the simplicity of adding them to a salad. They’re relatively inexpensive too. You buy them in their raw state and then simply grab a handful and put them in your salad!
- Crunchy fruits like apples, pears or grapes. These are great to add into any salad to give a little extra flavor to avoid the boringness of a cruciferous, bitter green salad. In addition, you get some fresh fruit that has great antioxidant and anti inflammatory benefits!
- Home Made Vinaigrette. Critical for any salad. A great basic vinaigrette is rice wine vinegar, olive oil, mustard, lime juice, salt and pepper and a little bit of honey. If you want to enjoy your salad, make sure to have a tasty dressing you actually enjoy. A great healthy choice for dressing is one that does not have cream and ton of artificial fillers in it. You can establish that by just mixing oil, vinegar, citrus and honey.
Putting a raw salad in your dietary habits is a great way to positively influence losing weight, maintaining a healthy weight and keeping the body feeling good and absent of disease. So go create
