The Salad Trap

The Salad Trap 2010

The Salad Trap

The Salad Trap

This may not be your fault at all. You can quit feeling guilty and discouraged; you have been bamboozled by some slick eateries that want you to believe their gorgeous, and expensive, salad is good for you, when in actuality its packing on more calories and fat than a burger that that funny looking King serves at his restaurant.

Here are some of the worst:

• Wendy's Chicken BLT Salad w/Croutons & Honey-Dijon Dressing-This salad tops out at 860 calories, 59 grams of fat, of which 17 are saturated and 1 is trans fat and a whopping 1665 mg sodium. You can shave calories by changing the dressing. The best, of course, would be fat-free French, but even Ranch would be better than Honey-Dijon. But, if you change the Honey-Dijon to Fat-Free French, you will save 170 calories. The croutons are the other major culprit. NEVER eat the croutons. They are loaded with carbs and oil-soaked to boot. In fact, you can order a single burger with everything and a side salad and eat 300 fewer calories.
• Quizno's Chicken Caesar Regular Chopped Salad-This remarkably healthy looking salad boasts 920 calories! Out of the 66.5 grams of fat, 20.5 are saturated and the 2,090 mg of sodium just puts you one step closer to heart disease. This is the fat equivalent to 20 strips of bacon. Where do the calories come from? The dressing, for one. Caesar dressing is heavy and fatty. Add the croutons and the fact that this "regular" sized salad is HUGE and that about explains it all. Quizno's only has one "regular" salad under 500 calories; that is the Pan Asian Regular Chopped Salad, but it still has 17.5 grams of fat, which is more than 1/2 what is recommended for a healthy diet and 4 grams of that are saturated. It also has 1,915 mg sodium.
• Applebee's Grilled Shrimp 'N Spinach, Regular-This salad sounds like it would be really healthy. Spinach, after all, is chock full of iron and shrimp has lots of lean protein and no fat, but this particular salad gives both of these otherwise "healthy" foods a bad name. It breaks the calorie barrier at 1,050 with an amazing 72 grams of fat (11 saturated) and over 2500 mg of sodium. Applebee's only has one salad that is less than 700 calories-the Weight Watchers Grilled Chili-Lime Chicken Salad.