You Can Serve Salad As An Appetizer, It Is Fun To Make Individual Servings

Green salads with a variety of lettuce and sprouts can give you more variety than just one kind of lettuce. I love to add pine nuts, sliced avocado, chopped snow peas cucumber & capsicum as well as making my own herb dressing which means you can adjust the oil/vinegar ratio while eliminating preservatives. I use balsamic vinegar for the dressing, even nice on its own, too sprinkled over the salad. Adding chopped prawns tossed with fresh mango pieces or salmon chunks makes a great salad suitable for a meal with lots of flavour. Freshly cooked & sliced beetroot is also a nice salad addition. A friend of mine is a dietician & she tells me that foods sold in certain plastics & plastic lined tins as well as some preservatives can cause you to add as much as 10% extra body weight so since I've eaten more fresh food I've found it much easier to loose weight.

We have a fun salad night at least once a week. I can't have a salad without avocados, they are so rich and filling and tasty that it almost feels like you're cheating. If you take veggie peeler and peel a little bit of carrot, a few peelings is such a miniscule amount in terms of carbs/calories but it packs in a huge punch of flavor and color. I love adding barely steamed broccoli or cauliflower to my salads. Grilled shrimp or a can of tuna as well. Hard boiled eggs. Try roasting some cauliflower with red pepper flakes/cumin/ground coriander and then tossing into the salad - AWESOME! Toss in some bok choy or finely slivered mushrooms. Fresh peas are delectable. We also like to toss in black beans or garbanzos.

Really, a salad can be anything. But a warning, zero starch diets are not bad for you but they are very hard to follow. And the minute you step off the wagon and take a bite of bread it's all over and next thing you know you've gained it all back plus a little extra. I speak from experience. It's best to try to include some of these foods in small portions in your diet, otherwise it can drive you bonkers.

White meats are kind to the heart and excellent when dieting. Roasted or steamed, served the salads mentioned above make a very tasty meal.

There are more interesting additions than mayonnaise though low fat yogurts, low fat soft cheese with chopped chives. A drop of olive oil with a nutty vinegar is very tasty as a salad sauce.

I recently made a vinaigrette with a water base which was delicious, 1 tsp medium mustard, 3 tsp nut vinegar, 1 soup spoon olive oil, 3 soup spoons water.

Red, White, Green cabbage (you can use Napa, whatever you prefer) finely shredded

Mixed Bell Pepper slices (optional)

Dress with a few drops of sesame oil, rice vinegar and salt

Salad with Emmenthal and Sunflower Seeds

Mix of soft lettuces (anything but iceberg which is going to compete with the delicate flavors)

Toss with a little balsamic vinegar or a light homemade vinaigrette that includes a touch of mustard

Top with toasted sunflower seeds and shredded emmenthal cheese

Balsamic vinegar works well on its own to dress a salad

Rosemary balsamic or other herbed vinegars are nice on their own on salads

Not a salad, but something for the sake of variety:

Fish filet (lean white fish satisfies hunger well for the number of calories involved)

Serve over a lightly blanched puree of spinach (use it as a sauce), Or top your fish with a homemade salsa: chopped tomatoes, red onion, cilantro, mango, yellow bell pepper, garlic, red onion.