Sandi Kaplan, MS, RD, Associate Director, Clinical Development & Support:

I have counseled patients for years on their nutrition habits, and the following scenario has come up in slightly different forms over and over again. John would like to lose ten pounds. He exercises each day even though he travels a lot for work. He eats out for over half of his meals but tells me that he works hard on making healthy choices. In John’s words, “I would never eat a burger and fries. I always choose a salad.” And there’s the problem. When John and I discussed the details, we realized that he was routinely eating 750-1,200 calorie salads.

How is it that restaurants are able to make huge, high-calorie salads and sell them to the kind of customer who wouldn’t even dream of eating a pepperoni pizza? Well, people assume salads are healthy—or at least that they’re healthier than burgers and pizza. However, the sad fact is that that assumption is often not true.

So how do we start with a bowl of healthy veggies and end up with a meal that is high in calories, saturated-fat, and sodium? The answer is in the dressing and the toppings. High-fat dressings add a ton of calories and saturated fat, as do bacon bits, processed meats and full-fat cheese. Nuts and seeds are nutritional powerhouses in small quantities but half a cup or more added to your salad pushes the calories even higher. The result is that a restaurant chopped salad can cost you between 1,000 and 1,800 calories.

I was recently with a colleague at a salad and hot foods bar across the street from our office. It’s one of our favorite places to grab a healthy lunch…or a not-so-healthy lunch, as we found out. My colleague was heaping her plate with fresh veggies, small scoops of brown rice, chickpeas and kidney beans, and a tablespoon of sunflower seeds. She chose the balsamic vinegar as her dressing and made her way to the checkout. I was watching the person behind her as he helped himself to about half a cup of veggies, full fat cheese, bacon bits and ranch dressing. He then wandered over to the hot food section and chose small servings of several of the deep fried dishes.

Both of them ended up at adjoining cash registers at the same time and the checkout folks were giggling at the coincidence because their bowls weighed exactly the same amount. But here was the difference – my colleague ended up with a large volume of high fiber, nutritious food for lunch. The other man ended up with a small volume of food that was low in fiber, high in saturated fat, and which was two or three times the calories of the healthy salad.

So when you choose the salad on the menu, try to design it yourself. Ask for extra veggies and choose lean protein (like chicken breast, grilled shrimp or beans). Skip the deep fried tortilla, the high-fat cheese and the full-fat dressings. Ask for condiments like nuts on the side so you can add small quantities yourself. Even most fast food restaurants will allow you to customize your own salad. And in chain restaurants, check the nutritional information that is provided. You may be surprised at what the healthiest choice on the menu actually is.