Salads and Dressings:

You may find it hard to believe but I used to eat salads in India.  We used to call it Kachumber.  While growing up, a good amount Kachumber was a part of our daily meals.  Our Kachumber used to generally consist of finely chopped romaine lettuce (called “salid” in Bombay), onions, cucumbers, and tomatoes.  Occasionally and when available, we’d add shredded kohlrabi (called “alkool” in Bombay).  Typically salt was added to Kachumber, which would release the juices from the raw salad and make it moist.  Kachumber was eaten along with the rest of the meal.

When I came to America, I noticed a few strange things.  First, the salad was served separately as the first course of a meal.  Second, the lettuce in the salad was torn into large pieces and was not chopped.  Third, the salad was mostly consisting of lettuce with an occasional piece of tomato or cucumber thrown in.  This was not the salad I was used to.  To make matters worse, I was asked what kind of dressing I wanted.  Dressing?  Why would I need dressing?  I didn’t have a wound that needed to be dressed!

Next thing I knew was that there was a variety of salad dressings available with exotic names like Thousand Island, Russian, French and Green Goddess.  I fell in love with a goddess, the green kind that is.  When FTC (Federal Trade Commission) ruled that all the ingredients must be listed on all food products, I learned of an ingredient called anchovies in Green Goddess.  Although I wanted to believe it so badly, it sounded fishy to me that the government would conspire to add anchovies in my favorite dressing just to wean me off Green Goddess.  My being a vegetarian overtook my desire for a great taste and I fell out of love with the Goddess.  I still miss her.

When I see people at restaurants douse their salads with half a pint of salad dressing, it scares me.  Everything they gain by eating salad is lost by eating that dressing.  Over the last ten years, everything I have read about natural foods has taught me that ALL commercially available salad dressings are bad.  The ones that tout to be low-fat or fat-free are particularly bad because of the sugars and other junk that they put in them to make them palatable.  For the last 10 or more years we have been adding two ingredients to our salads, flax oil and sea salt.  That’s it.  We prefer hi-lignan flax oil and when flax oil is not available we use olive oil (EVOO when possible).  When we are eating at a restaurant I always ask them not to add dressing to my salad.  Most restaurants will serve you olive oil on the side if you ask them.  When that is not available we ask for dressing on the side and occasionally dip our forks in it.  I actually prefer to eat my salad without any dressing, like a good Indian boy that I am.

Mantra: I will not eat any commercially prepared salad dressing ever again.

These days, raw salads form 50% of our lunches and dinners.  Our salads are the Kachumber kind, chopped finely enough so that I can eat it with a spoon or with a piece of roti.  We add a generous quantity of flax oil and sea salt.  I love to have baby spinach and red onions in my salads.  Other ingredients we use often are Persian or English cucumbers, avocados, vine ripened tomatoes, and sprouts.  As far as possible, we use organically grown ingredients.

Salad Bars:

I used to love eating at all-you-can-eat salad bars.  I never lost weight eating food from salad bars and may have actually gained some.  Why is that?  Salad bars serve a lot of items, which for the purposes of this conversation are non-salads.  They are chicken salad, potato salad, macaroni salad, pasta salad, croutons, peas, chick peas, all kinds of beans, boiled eggs, all kinds of cheeses, fruits, dried fruit (cranberry, raisins), cooked vegetables, crispy noodles, bread slices, bread-rolls, and so on.  You get the picture.  These are all non-salads and should be avoided.

Repeat after me:

·         I will never eat a scone or a muffin again.

·         I will eat no more than 170g of carbs every day.

·         I will walk 30 to 60 minutes every day, no excuses.

·         I will never eat from a buffet at an Indian restaurant.

·         I will not eat commercially prepared cereal ever again.

·         I will not eat any commercially prepared salad dressing ever again.

·         I will wait at least three to four hours after dinner before lying down to go to sleep.