RESTAURANT SALAD:  If you think about the typical American restaurant salad, it is huge, filled with at least three cups of lettuce and chock full of other items such as vegetables, meat, nuts, cheese or fruit.  Add the dressing and you are consuming massive calories and fat.  Let’s break down the Caesar salad since this seems to be a particularly popular salad choice for people.

• Romaine Lettuce – Usually about four cups of Romaine lettuce can be found in a full Caesar salad.  This lettuce is a fantastic source of fiber and numerous vitamins and minerals.  It also has negligible amounts of calories.
• Grilled Chicken – An ideal serving would be four to five ounces of chicken, but I have seen some large Caesar salads which have three ounces or less and are added almost as an afterthought.  Usually this chicken is grilled with seasonings including an appreciable amount of salt for flavor.
• Shredded Parmesan Cheese –
• The good: This food is a good source of  Phosphorus, and a very good source of Protein and Calcium.
  The  bad: This food is high in Sodium, and very high in Saturated Fat.  It also carries a hefty calorie count.
• Croutons – Typically salad croutons found in a restaurant salad are made of French bread, which is made with white enriched flour.  This is processed flour and has a higher glycemic index and lower nutritional value than other types of bread.  They are made by adding melted butter or oil and seasonings then baked on a cookie sheet.  The added butter hikes up the calorie count and adds saturated fat to the mix.
• Caesar Salad Dressing – Besides oil and vinegar, the classic dressing used for this salad contains egg yolks, anchovies, Worcestershire sauce and more Parmesan cheese.   Anchovies are VERY high in sodium, as are Worcestershire sauce and Parmesan cheese.

Perhaps the biggest red flag comes from the sodium count in this salad.  A typical restaurant Caesar salad contains roughly 1,500 milligrams of sodium, which is about 75% of the recommended daily intake of sodium.  And that is in one meal!

If you want to make a healthier choice, order a mixed greens salad with oil and vinegar or lemon slices on the side, and add a grilled chicken breast.