Get Your Cutting Board Ready: Today We're Making a Vegetable Salad

Prepare a cutting board, knife, vegetable peeler, and a large bowl because this time we're making a vegetable salad.

Israeli Vegetable Salad: A vegetable salad can consist of the eternal trio of cucumber, tomato, and lettuce. That's fine but a bit boring. Therefore, your salad should include various combinations from the abundance of vegetables that the Land of Israel excels in, such as mushrooms, peppers of various colors, different colored onions, two-colored cabbage, carrots, leafy vegetables, and more.

Fresh Color: It's important to eat vegetables (and fruits) in five colors. Each color contains phytochemicals that activate different defense systems in our body, protecting us from harmful substances and processes. Therefore, compose your salad from lycopene (found in tomatoes, red pepper, radishes, and radish), carotenoids (found in carrots, orange pepper, and yellow pepper), chlorophyll, lutein, and sulforaphane (found in broccoli, green cabbage, cucumber, light green pepper, celery, fennel, and leafy vegetables), allicin (found in onions, garlic, leeks, cauliflower, kohlrabi, turnip, mushrooms, and chicory), and anthocyanins (found in purple cabbage, purple onions, and purple lettuce).

What Do We Get From This? The vegetables are rich in oil-soluble vitamins (A,D,E,K) and water-soluble vitamins (B,C), as well as minerals (calcium, magnesium, potassium, and more), all wrapped in dietary fibers that are important for, among other things, the health and motility (peristalsis) of our digestive system. This is in addition to what is noted in the previous section.

A Third Cleared: Before you heat up a lunch or prepare dinner, chop a vegetable salad. Fill a third of your plate with the salad, and keep the other two-thirds for additional foods.

Dressings: Forget all the industrial dressings that spoil the healthy atmosphere here. They are full of harmful oil, synthetic vinegar, sugar, and other components whose meanings you and your body do not comprehend. And no, don't think that "diet" dressing is any better. On the contrary, it contains additional substances that belong in the food industry and not on your kitchen counter. Therefore, dip the salad in olive oil, fresh lemon juice, za'atar, or tahini from whole sesame seeds.

Salad Meal: Want a salad that satisfies and includes all three macronutrients? Prepare a chicken salad like in cafes. Chop lettuce, fresh cucumber, pickled cucumber, blanch a bit of frozen corn kernels and add strips of chicken breast grilled on a griddle. Want it to be pareve? Substitute the chicken with tuna.

Cafe: Want to go out without ruining the healthy vibe? Order a vegetable salad at the cafe. But, read the ingredient list on the menu. It always starts out well (cucumber, tomato, lettuce, mushrooms, and peppers), but continues with ingredients not related to the vegetable family (croutons, fried halloumi cheese, and the like). Just like in an American exam, those who don't read to the end of the sentence make mistakes. So order a vegetable-laden salad. And that's it!

Spreads: It's unclear how all the spreads, such as hummus, tahini, eggplant in mayonnaise, and their peers, have managed to brand themselves as salads. They are not. They belong to other food groups. For example, to the legume group, the seed group, the oil group, and others. Don't get confused.

Want to Know More? Purchase the series of lectures "Grow Healthy" taught by the naturopath Sarah Bar Asher at the Jewish campus of Hidabroot.

Sarah Bar Asher is a naturopath and lecturer on nutrition and the food industry. Barasher@zahav.net.il