Some pre-packed salads have been found to have more fat and calories than eating a burger and fries or 6 crème eggs. A study by the consumer organisation Which? looked at a variety of supermarket off the self salads, taking a close look at the small print on the labels.
A 300g small prawn salad sold in Morrisons topped the league packing in 855calories and 66.3g of fat. That’s nearly all the fat for one day in the guideline daily amounts for a woman and more calories than in a McDonald’s Big Mac and medium fries (820Kcals and 40g fat).
Marks and Spencer’s pasta with tomato and basil chicken salad came second for calories at 760Kcals and 46g of fat, with mayonnaise being the second highest ingredient at 27% of the meal. Most of the fat from salads is due to the amount of high fat dressings, mayonnaise or oils used.
Asda’s Chicken Caesar Pasta Salad contained 683Kcals and 41g of fat, the same amount of fat as in 6 Cadbury’s crème eggs.
When choosing salads pick from ones where you can see lots of colourful salad vegetables rather than just pasta or rice. Also look for those with salad dressing on the side so you can just add the little you need and drastically reduce the fat and calorie content.
A caution on cheese if you are watching the pounds and keep portions small. It’s a great source of calcium but it is also high in fat. Beans and pulses are another protein option and work well in salads.
As with anything shop bought, read the labels if you want to keep a check on what you are eating. The information is there, but it might be very small and misleading, often needing you to calculate the amount in the portion size you will be having.
Have a look at the salad trial we conducted to see what the public made of these salads
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWl8JZfMaFg
25/6/2009