Is a Salad a Healthy Option?
Those interesting people at Which? magazine have recently released a report on supermarket salads. In their sensational revelations, picked up by the media including the BBC, Which? declares how so many salads are far from being a healthy option at all but are indeed higher in calories and fats than a Big Mac and Fries! Wow! Strewth!
But hang on a second, since when did anyone say that a salad was a low calorie healthy option? And do we, in the UK, really appreciate what a salad is in the first place?
A couple of years ago, the Daily Mail ran a rather stupid article critisising Charles on his criticism of the fast food industry by pointing out that Duchy Original pasties were higher in calories, fat and salt than a Big Mac. This was obviously a really useless comparison – comparing a tasteless burger in an aerated bun with a stonking great big bit of meat and potato in a whacking great pie crust! The idiocy of the article is that a Cornish Pasty is not meant to be a lightweight little snack or something designed for people on a diet, it is meant to be a high calorie meal for working people on a low income – that is what it was invented for and Duchy Originals have produced a nice tasting, organic, manufactured version – good for them.
The problem here is that the British and apparently their media make wrong assumptions about so much of food and misunderstand what it is and, for that matter what it should be. Take the term “organic.” This is used to describe food ingredients grown or bred without the use of artificially produced fertilizers, pesticides, feeds and so on. It does NOT mean healthy, tasty, low-calorie, good quality or anything else that we try and associate with good food. And of course in reality much of the organic veg, for instance, that is bought in supermarkets is tasteless, uninspiring and probably a waste of money. Supermarkets take advantage of that, or course, and have no problems in forgetting to tell people that Organic is more or less meaningless in so many ways. But this confusion extends to beyond the organic lobby. All the way to Salads. And for once this is not the fault of supermarkets.
I am not sure who coined the phrase “nice healthy salad,” but they were obviously pretty ignorant of what a salad is and could be. When I was young a salad in most English restaurants was a few undressed pale leaves, some sliced carrot, grated waxy cheese, and some very light red slices of fast grown tomato. And for many people that is what it still is. I am not sure where the idea that this was a healthy meal came from – it is basically a pile of water with some dairy fats thrown in. Fairly innocent maybe, but not greatly beneficial to any growing person. And of course revolting to eat.
Then we saw the introduction of the American Salad Bar. This was an invention designed to make overweight people like me feel good about getting even more overweight. The real thing you find in the states (not that pathetic also-ran you find in the criminally bad quality Pizzahut), would be bulging with calories, salt and fat; baby chicken wings, all kinds of things in heavy dressings, croutons, rice, coleslaw, mushrooms in tomato and oil, things fried in pastry, roasted veg in more trans-fats (sorry, that is Pizzahut) and the rest of the 100 foot long display. Loads of fun, of that there is no doubt, but really very little in the “healthy” department.
Despite this, at some point it was decided that the average high calorie, high salt and high fat salad was the healthy thing to have and suddenly everyone is describing them as a Healthy Option.
Maybe this has something to do with what I always think of as the home of the salad – France. And more to the point, the Mediterranean (so we better include Italy in a hurry!) We all know what a good French or Italian salad is – its that square plastic box stuffed with beans, iceberg lettuce, grated cheese a bit of parsley and a load of oil! Except, in all the years I have been to the Med, I have never found that except at a British targeted resort. Go to a local restaurant in a village and ask for a salad and you will get dark green leaves, rich dark tomatoes, a sprinkling of beautifully balanced dressing and a question asking what you want the salad to be accompanying.
It is not a solo dish really, you see, but an accompaniment. A “ham salad” in France is better described as Ham served with a specific salad – it is not a creation in itself, it is part of a wider dish. This puts the entire idea of a salad into proper context and lets it shine by adding its own characteristics to your favourite slap of cured meat and bread, or grilled fish or croque monsieur, or whatever. But, it is never meant to be the healthy alternative, but a taste enjoyment in its own right.
So, should you go to Marks and Sparks and buy a salad, don’t think that you are necessarily getting something healthy, because that is and should not be the case. You are buying something that is what it says on the packet, be that high calorie, high salt and high fat, or something a little less waist defining! But don’t group the whole lot into something that it was never intended to be, that is unfair to the entire concept!
Related posts:
- Why should you buy Organic, or not?
- Farmers Markets losing the battle with Trolleygarchs
- The Death of the local Cheese Shop
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