Light and fresh as a salad

No small thanks to weight watchers everywhere, the salad is beginning to take on center stage from an obscure, little corner during the earlier times. Indeed, salad is now enjoying the same popularity of the, well not exactly pizza, but at least fast food.

New diet and fitness methods seem to pop out everywhere on a monthly basis. From crash to yoyo to Low Carb-High Protein, to the After Six, to South Beach to something as crazy as color dieting.

The methods vary mostly in the food composition that must be consumed while on the diet, but what's common to all these are the inclusion of salad in one form or another.

Indeed, the humble salad has found its way even to those fast food counters as health consciousness begins to grow. Even the Fast food king, McDonald's himself, had to yield to the pressure and has started to offer healthy alternatives that includes, you've guess it right, the salad.

There are more than a thousand ways to prepare a salad. This can be served as an appetizer, a main course, dessert and even as a sandwich filling. Although most often associated with all those big nutritional stuff such as the lettuces, romaines, tomatoes, carrots, cucumber and grapes, the salad can also take on the form of a heavier meal.

While chicken and tuna are the most common ingredients, pork, turkey and peking duck have already found their way in bowls everywhere.

Generally, the term salad refers to a preparation of chopped and / or sliced ingredients. Although meat can be incorporated in it, it has to contain at least one or two vegetables and fruits. It can be served dry or with a dressing.

The most common dressings are whipped cream, vinaigrette, thousand island, honey-mustard and ceasars' dressing. And the most common ingredients are lettuce, tomatoes, carrots and cucumber. Eggs have also become a regular ingredient.

The popularity of the salad has grown mostly because of its nutritional value. It satisfies the hunger pangs without weighing in too much on the scale. And this is why it has become a favorite preparation for the health nuts everywhere.

Come to think of it, one need really not be a health enthusiast to enable him or her to enjoy this preparation. With the variety and interesting textures that come up every time, one is bound to find one that he or she can be addicted to.