Eat Green and be Healthy

The United States is regarded as the fattest country and also the home to most of the world’s diet fanatics (obsessed totally to dieting). Researchers have marveled that once green food has got a bad reputation because it was only associated with a diet fanatic girlfriend who won’t order anything else rather than green salads. They have also found that diet and fitness are closely interdependent to each other. It means that if you eat food with no workout, no matter how healthy is food, you will get obese. Conversely you hit the gym with lots of junk then it will adversely affect you and you will not be able to get good results.

You will not be able to find people ordering a salad when eating out or even eating in, except few ones. People think that these salad stereotypes have no significance for their body as well as their health. But, their perception can be replaced with a properly structured, which can be the real nutritional powerhouse of a meal. As the salads offer you a multitude of benefits including your looks and health, which other cooked foods can’t claim.

What’s so green and healthy about salads?

Have you had your salad today? No, then you have done wrong with you because having a bowl of salad either in the breakfast, lunch, or dinner every day seems to be one of the healthiest habits you can adopt and one of the simplest, researchers say.

Salads can make your day because these are super foods that have the capability to provide you with fresh vegetables and fruits. You are thinking right now, how salads can be so powerful and rich. See, green salad is a source of high fiber and other anti-oxidants, and to make it powerful diet for you then you can add nuts, grains, steak, and salamis.

You have to compose your salads well, if you want them artful, filling, flavorful, and nutritious. Along with the above mentioned features, salads are cool, crunchy, and fun to eat. If you want to eat green salads, then you can easily find them on the menu of almost every restaurant now days. You can also make a green salad at your home in 5 minutes by adding various ingredients from lettuce to carrots or other veggies.

Reasons why salads are beneficial and healthy for a person:

There are never-ending benefits of having a bowl of salad each day because it contains lots of fiber, antioxidants, and protein. These are mentioned in detail below:

• Fiber – Salads consist of enough fiber, which means if you have these every day it lowers the risk of developing heart disease later in life. Basically, vegetables in salads are great source of insoluble fiber, which helps you in keeping your digestive tract healthy. A hand full of nuts, seeds or beans to the salad, will provide you a boost of soluble fiber that helps in lowering the cholesterol and keeps blood sugar balanced. Moreover, a cup of iceberg lettuce along with a half carrot and a red pepper provides men and women 7 percent and 10 percent daily fiber intake, respectively

• Antioxidants – Salad ingredients are a rich source of carotenoids, vitamin C and A in the form of antioxidants. These include beta-carotene, lutein, and lycopene, which protect healthy cells from damage caused by free radicals. You can fulfill your antioxidants need by having a cup of spinach, which has 93 percent and lettuce, which has 88 percent of vitamin A. If you add half of a medium-sized carrot in your salad, then you’ll gain more than 100 percent of your daily vitamin A. Moreover, if you add sweet red peppers, tomatoes and broccoli in your salad, then you will get a better mix of both antioxidants

• Protein – Protein intake is very necessary for body and for fulfilling the needs of it, you should stick on leafy greens because these are the perfect source of protein. You can also add low-fat cheese and lean meat such as chicken or turkey into your salad as a dressing. Furthermore, to give crunches to your salad add half cup of beans or a 1-ounce serving of nuts or seeds

Benefits of eating salad:

There are a number of benefits of eating salad, these are as mentioned below:

• The most important benefit of eating salad directly relates to your skin as these increases your hydration level. Most green leafy veggies contain a majority of water. So, to eat them you naturally hydrate your body. Veggies in salad are very helpful for your appearance and comfort because these help you in dealing with summer’s warm temperatures

• Salads are fast because these can be quickly prepared. The basic mantra of preparing a salad is that it only requires you to wash and cut the vegetables and no baking is required

• Everyone can make a salad which means that in preparing a salad, you need not to be a master. Just by adding some simple ingredients you can prepare a very delicious and crunchy salad

• Salad diversity makes everyone happy because you can have a different salad at the same table by adjusting the ingredients as to their likes or dislikes

• Salads are unlimited because there is no end to the number of its recipes. You can start with fresh greens like spinach and lettuce by adding some hand full of ingredients like beans, grains, or nuts

• Salads help in digestion, as these do not cause bloating as fatty meal does to you. These are full of high fiber, which helps you in sweeping through the digestive system by carrying leftover junk with it and leaving intestinal and colon walls free to absorb the vitamins

Some healthy recipes of making a salad:

For preparing a salad, you just need to have a lot of vegetables and your imagination. Start with:

Squid, samphire cheese pea salad:

Preparing the mentioned salad, you just need a large pan of salted water to the boil, add the peas into the water and cook for 3 minutes.

• Now, drain the water and leave to steam-dry

• Cut onions or spring onions as per your choice into a bowl with 1 tbsp lemon juice. Spread olive oil, squid and lots of black pepper over the onions. Toss them together and leave the mixture sit for a few minutes

• After a few minutes, add the shredded parmesan cheese over the mixture along with the steam dried peas and samphire. Toss together for a few minutes and season well with oregano and red peppers

• Now, for dressing add shredded parmesan in a little quantity to give a mouth watering look to the salad. Place 4 lemon quarterly cut lemon wedges on the side of the salad

Burnt corn salad:

This salad is very delicious and is best option for diabetic patient’ s fitness. Burnt corn salad makes the person fanatic about this recipe. As Mexicans love smoked or barbecued flavor in their food. This salad is the best example of that in which fresh corn kernels are grilled over an open flame to impart a burnt-smoked flavor. One most important point of this salad is that this is extremely low in calories and fat, but high in fiber. By adding some tomatoes, onions and capsicum well with corn enhance the flavor of this salad. For tangy flavor add some lemon juice to the salad and olive oil for dressing and mixing together.

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