
Why salad is so overrated - adventured
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food/why-salad-is-so-overrated/2015/08/21/ecc03d7a-4677-11e5-8ab4-c73967a143d3_story.html
======
yellowapple
Part of the issue is iceberg lettuce in particular; there are other lettuces
that are (at least marginally) more nutritious, but iceberg lettuce is pretty
much just filler, and is much more popular.

------
Afton
Is there some evidence that raw food is better for you? It's a lot more _work_
to get through a giant bowl of cabbage than some sauteed in butter, but is it
better for you? I imagine that there may be specific nutrients that don't
survive heating, but is it significant?

Maybe the problem is the healthy halo on "fresh vegetables" in general.

~~~
blacksmith_tb
"Better" is not straightforward. In general, eating a lot of raw foods leads
to weight loss, not because they are magic, but because they require a lot of
work to digest, compared to cooked foods. Which points to one of the problems
with the WaPo article - it uses "nutrition" in the narrowest sense of
"containing nutrients". Obviously important, but not the only thing to
consider. That head of lettuce may contain as much water as a bottle of Evian,
and not much more in the way of nutrients, but it also contains large amounts
of fiber, which is functionally important to our guts. There's a passing dig
at eggplant for being watery and non-nutritious, but that ignores not just its
fiber but also its antioxidants -
[https://www.ars.usda.gov/is/pr/2004/040108.htm](https://www.ars.usda.gov/is/pr/2004/040108.htm)

~~~
Afton
Thank you. I completely agree that 'better' is not straightforward and am on
record as claiming that 'healthy food' is silly, we should only care about
'healthy diets' (for example, simple salad isn't healthy if you have a protein
deficiency).

Incidentally, green leaf lettuce has less than 5 grams of fiber for a whole
head. So as far as it's use as a source of fiber, it seems underwhelming.

Thanks.

------
eliteraspberrie
Don't eat salad for the lettuce, it's just water and fiber. Eat salad for the
dressing. Traditionally, dressing is about 3/4 oil (olive oil) and 1/4 acid
(vinegar), which is nutritious.

