Sneaky Salad Sabotagers

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With your host, celebrity nutrition and fitness expert and New York Times best selling author, JJ Virgin.

So you start out with the best of intentions. You go, you know, I'm out to lunch, I'm just going to have a salad. But the next thing you know, you've got more sugar and calories than a double scoop hot fudge sundae. You just took that healthy salad and turned it into a sundae. Well, you know, how the heck did that happen? I'm going to give you some of the most common offenders that can sabotage your salad. And remember, they seem like such little innocuous things, but they all add up. First one, dried fruit. You know, you look at the salad and they go, and there's just some dried cranberries on it or some raisins or some currants. And they're just these little things. No, those little things are little candy bombs. I want you, from here on out, I want you to start thinking of dried fruit equals candy. And it doesn't take much to add another hundred calories of sugar in. And remember, it's not about the calories. It's what those calories tell your body. When you eat that sugar. It drives up blood sugar, drives up insulin. And it's telling your body that dried fruit to store fat. And even worse, that dried fruit are little fructose sugar bombs. And fructose goes straight to the liver, tells your body to make fat, but doesn't tell you that you've eaten anything. So that little dried fruit is making you hungry and fat all at the same time. All right, we won't go there anymore. Now the next thing you do is you think, okay, I'm worried about the fat, so I'll have the fat free dressing. And because you had the fat free dressing, you're thinking it's like free, right? And so you slather it on, well, guess what? So many of those fat free dressings have a teaspoon of sugar per tablespoon of dressing. And because you felt like it was safe, because it was fat free, you probably put on extra. You could have gotten four teaspoons of sugar just in that alone. So number one, don't fear fat, okay? Fat is our friend. Yes, you want to make an oil change. You don't want to eat bad fats. But extra virgin olive oil, macadamia nut oil, walnut oil, all make great oils for salad dressings. Don't be fooled by the fat free because when they pull the fat in, they put the sugar fat out, put the sugar in. And low fat means high sugar and high sugar means high fat on your body. A couple other things to be careful with in the salad dressings are just some ones that naturally have sugar in them like honey mustard or sweet and sour or raspberry vinaigrette or Asian dressings or balsamic vinegar. Because you know what, balsamic vinegar is actually not vinegar, it's syrup. Especially the cheap ones that we get here in the grocery stores. Best thing you can do with the salad dressing is if at your home make your own. You're going to save so much cash and it's so much better. My most favorite thing to do is just use macadamia nut oil, fish, fresh squeezed lemon juice and a little sea salt. Come on, you can actually make that in your salad. It's so easy. If I'm at a restaurant, I just order lemon wedges or red wine vinegar and some extra virgin olive oil on the side. Okay, so this is one you can do wherever you are. Next one is you'll see them now go. Okay, so you're going to have the salad. It's a lunch salad, so we're going to have some protein. So maybe we will have some barbecue chicken on top. Well, barbecue sauce is loaded with sugar just like, just like those fat free dressings. Teaspoon of sugar, tablespoon of salad dressing. So no barbecue sauces on anything. And same with no glazed anything. So if they have a glazed chicken breast, a teriyaki chicken breast, or a glazed piece of salmon, you know what glazed means? Glazed means shined with sugar. So leave the glaze to the donuts and leave those alone. Deal? All right, next one, those little crunchy things that they put on there, you know, the wontons or the tortilla strips or the croutons which are code for fried bread. Those little crunchy crispies of starch. Remember when you eat starch, the minute it hits your mouth, it starts raising blood sugar. You start breaking it down with amylase enzyme into sugar. When you break it down into sugar, you know, all carbohydrates except for fiber turn into sugar. It's really about how fast it's going to happen. You want your body to slowly make sugar from the carbs you eat, not to give it a big rush job. So those crunchies, they got to go. Besides, not only are they starch that's turning straight into sugar, they basically have damaged fats in them as well. So that's a one, two punch. There's a couple other things, especially if you're at a salad bar that you'll see they'll put on there that you can add in. So you might see like. And I know we don't even have to go here, but I'm just going to mention, just in case you might need to help a friend, maybe there's one of those salads with marshmallows in it. Okay, we know better than that, right? What are they called? Like ambrosia salads. Ew. But the other ones you have to watch out for carrot raisin salad. You know, carrot raisin salad has the same sugar impact as a piece of carrot cake. No, that does not mean have the carrot cake, but it certainly doesn't mean have the carrot raisin salad either. And coleslaw, they add sugar to the coleslaw. By the way, I want to point out one more dishonorable mention. That big wedge salad that you'll see at a lot of the steak restaurants. The big wedge, which is a big wedge of iceberg lettuce, which is basically just a pesticide carrier. And then they'll put that blue cheese dressing on cup. I remember hearing this. One of the restaurant guys told me, we put a cup of sugar when we make that salad dressing. Oh, my gosh. So no wedges for us. Okay, So I told you what to watch out for, but how do you put together the perfect salad? We're going to follow the rules of the virgin diet and sugar impact diet plate, which means you're going to have good, clean lean protein. So that could be some leftover wild salmon or grass fed beef or chicken. Whenever you're cooking or going out to eat, bring home some protein because it makes a great salad the next day or a great wrap. So, so start with some great clean lean protein there and you're gonna put that on top when you're done. So chicken, fish, shrimp, grass fed beef, lamb, whatever you have leftover. Then of course, we're also gonna have some healthy fats that could be avocados, raw nuts and seeds. The type of salad dressing you have, macadamia nut oil, extra virgin olive oil. We're gonna use Slow, low carbs. So that could be maybe some leftover quinoa pasta noodles or some chickpeas or some quinoa or wild rice. Then of course, loads of non starchy vegetables. So we're going to start with the greens. And I love arugula, I love radicchio because it's the highest source of potassium out there. Spinach, romaine, microgreens, cabbage. Cabbage especially. Let's go big on the cabbage because that's like your own little salad detox. And you know what makes it really fun? How you can really pep up your salad is get some fresh basil and throw that in there as well. I use one of those special salad choppers that they have at like those places like chopped. And I chop up my greens. I love things really shredded well. And then throw in some chopped vegetables. Remember, I like you to have 5 to 10 servings of non starchy vegetables a day. A cup of raw is a serving or a half a cup of cooked. So I mean you can make a salad and have at least five cups of vegetables or five servings of vegetables. I'll do chopped vegetables, onions, carrots, mushrooms, peppers, asparagus, anything that's leftover from the night before, especially if I've roasted up some vegetables. Those are great the next day in a salad. And then of course we talked about some slow, low carbs. Tomatoes or beans or wild rice or quinoa. Throw that all together, mix it up, top it with some protein, maybe throw a little bit of avocado on the top and then make your salad dressing. And again, this is where you really want to focus because where people get in trouble is with those darn dressings. And the store bought ones are so expensive. So start with a great foundation, extra virgin olive oil or walnut oil or macadamia nut oil, my favorite personal favorite. Then add in either lemon juice or apple cider vinegar or red wine vinegar or white wine vinegar. Just skip out on the balsamic and then that might just be enough. But I like to throw in a little extra sea salt. I'll do some fresh herbs or maybe some Dijon mustard. And there you go. I mean, that's it. And if you want to get a little fancy, maybe some chopped walnuts or pecans on top. You've got your loads of vegetables, you've got some slow, low carbs, you've got some healthy protein and great fats and your sugar impact's low. And there's no foods that can create food intolerance. You just took back the control on that salad. No more salad sundaes for you.

It's scary but true. Sugar is hiding everywhere in diet foods, packaged foods, dressings and even sugar substitutes. It's not about cutting out all sugar, it's knowing which sugars to choose and which to lose. What if you could drop seven hidden sugars lose up to ten pounds in just two weeks? JJ Virgin will show you how with a simple four step plan to cut cravings and rev up your metabolism to lose fat fast and forever. Visit jjvirgin.com books and order the Sugar Impact Diet. You can shed up to ten pounds in two weeks. Visit jjvirgin.com books Toyota Thon is on.

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